School Closure to Year 8 & Year 9 only - Friday 18th March 2022
This is a letter every headteacher dreads writing, due to the inevitable pressure on parents and families and potential disruption it will cause. However, our staffing absence levels this week have reached a point where we are unable to stay fully open to all year groups safely. We were almost at this point several times last half term in January and just about managed to stay fully open, but unfortunately we are back there again.
There are currently 5 staff absent with Covid on top of additional staff absence; 12 teachers are being covered today. It is not an ideal situation for students - who are not getting a good deal with weaker supply staff and non-specialists - or for our remaining staff who are struggling to cover and backfill for colleagues. From a health and safety perspective we do not have enough staff to supervise the site adequately with this level of absence.
Students in Year 8 and 9 will therefore be asked to work remotely from home on Friday 18th March. We hope this will just be for one day to ease the pressure we are facing, but we will have to make a decision over the weekend regarding a full return for all year groups on Monday 21st March once we have a better understanding of the staffing picture. We will aim to confirm this by 4pm on Sunday afternoon at the latest via School Comms/email.
Students will be set work on Google Classroom to complete by their subject teachers. I am afraid we cannot deliver live lessons throughout the day a) because staff are genuinely ill and b) remaining staff in school may be re-deployed to cover KS4 or Year 7 lessons for colleagues.
I am sorry for the inconvenience this will cause to working families but hope you can understand the situation we are in. I am enormously grateful for your ongoing support.
Yours faithfully,
Kelly Holbrook
Headteacher