WLD Update for Parents & Carers Thursday 2nd July 2020

Good afternoon,

Year 10:  Next week Year 10 are getting access to teachers in at least 2 of their options to support their remote learning.  The timetables for this are necessarily very complex!  All students who have been in this week have been told their day(s) for next week and Mrs Hodgson is individually emailing students who have not been in this week for any reason.  Should you have any questions about the timetable for next week, please email Mrs Hodgson on l.hodgson@waltonledale.lancs.sch.uk.     

Opening in September:  The government has published guidance on full opening for schools today - you will find the press release here.  We will study the guidance, plan carefully and then communicate with you over the coming days and weeks.  Should you wish to read the full guidance you will find it here.

Mentoring:  We think that it is very important that, as students return to school in September, they have "key adult" on the staff who acts as their initial point of contact for any issues and supports them on their return.  This is traditionally a "form tutor" role, but, under these circumstances, we are going to involve every member of staff so that the number of students for each adult is significantly reduced.  We work well as a whole-staff team. Traditionally we have offered this kind of mentoring to Year 11s in the run up to GCSEs, but these are unusual times and every student will need the benefits of increased support. There has been an ongoing system of contact throughout this pandemic by phone, email or Microsoft Teams and in many cases the mentor going forward will be the person who has been in regular contact already.   All of us will be in contact with parents/carers (by phone or email) and individual students (using email or Teams) before the end of term in order to help to support students for their return in September.  Should you have any questions about this, please contact Mr Howarth, Deputy Headteacher (p.howarth@waltonledale.lancs.sch.uk). 

Facebook:  Thank you so much to those parents who rang me with advice on running a Facebook page for the school.  We have now set up a page - https://www.facebook.com/WLDHighSchool/ or @WLDHighSchool  - please like, follow and share.   We will post links to daily updates, school news etc... as we do on our Twitter account (@WLDHighSchool).  Once again, many thanks to the people who gave us very useful professional advice, it is much appreciated.

Notice from Miss Royal (our Careers Co-ordinator): Big Bang Digital 2020 – science, engineering & Covid-19 is a free, online event on Tuesday 14 July that celebrates the amazing work of scientists and engineers in a pandemic. The 1-day event celebrates their achievements, hears about challenges, innovation and collaboration, and explores some upsides to lockdown. Aimed at students aged 11+ #BigBangDigital gives young people a front row view of the incredible contribution of people working in science and engineering.  
 

Best wishes

James Harris

Headteacher