I hope you and your families are well. Thank you so much for being so supportive, patient and understanding as our students have returned to school, and have now completed their first full week with us. The support of parents and carers, and the excellent behaviour and attitude to learning of the vast, vast majority of our students has helped to make our first full week since March a real success.

• Attendance has been excellent.
• 94% of our students have received no behaviour comments, and no comments for procedural issues relating to things such as uniform and lateness.
• All of our Year 11 students have been attending their Period 6 lesson each day. We are very proud of them!
• Our new Year 7 students have been fantastic! They have quickly found their way around and have made a great start in lessons.

Of course, the start to a new year in such different circumstances has not been without its teething problems, however we have are working to find solutions to these problems:

 

Lunch Queues

The division of our dining hall into two has been very successful in terms of separating our year group bubbles, but has led to some lengthy lunch queues. We have listened to the concerns of students who have told us they have not had time to eat their lunch given the length of their wait in the queue. From Monday, students wishing to purchase hot and cold sandwiches and paninis will be able to pre-order and pay for a ‘grab bag’ from breakfast club and collect this from a separate area of the dining hall at lunch time, avoiding the queue. We would encourage students wishing to buy sandwiches/paninis to pre-order as this should give everyone more time to enjoy their lunch.

 

Buses

Unfortunately, our after-school bus services have frequently arrived late over the last week. We are working with the bus company to try to resolve this. Also, while we have been successful in ensuring there is an after-school bus service for our Year 11s at 15.45, at present this service only goes as far as Halfway and not to Mosborough. Again, we’ll continue to explore whether this service could be extended to Mosborough.

 

Face coverings

Thank you for sending your children to school with a face covering each day. We fully understand that this is another thing to remember on top of uniform, equipment, planners, water bottles…

While most students have been very diligent in bringing and wearing their face covering, we have nevertheless had to issue a large number of spare face coverings over the last eight days. Please could you ensure your child brings a face covering to school each day.

 

Parents Evenings/Open Evenings

Unfortunately, owing to the ongoing restrictions, we will be unable to hold open evenings, parents evenings or information evenings as we had planned to do. We are, however, desperate to ensure we keep all parents/carers informed of how their children are progressing and how best to support them at home. We will share further information regarding our plans for remote alternatives for these evenings once they have been finalised.

 

Thank you again for your continued support,

Joe Birkbeck
Head of Westfield School