18 January 2021
Good afternoon,
Homework: Following the update on Friday whole-school ASPIRE activities on reading and independent study have been posted on the website. If you haven't had a chance to read the changes to homework the information is at the same link. I hope that you will see this as a careful approach to balancing the demands of online learning with enabling academic progress at this challenging time.
Oak Academy Launches Free Virtual Library: Each week, Oak National Academy - in partnership with the National Literacy Trust, are going to provide a free e-book to read. This week the author will be Jacqueline Wilson and there will be a selection of exclusive videos and recommended reads too. Your child will receive additional Classcharts for reading if they let Mrs Long know if they participate in this scheme. The link is https://library.thenational.academy/.
GCSE grades - Ofqual consultation: Ofqual have now launched a two week consultation into the way that GCSE and other qualification grades will be awarded in the summer. You will find the press release here, which contains a link to the full consultation. Please respond to the consultation if you wish - I will be doing so from my perspective. The most important message to take from it at the moment, in my view, is that it looks as if the grades will be largely guided by teacher assessment so it is very important, as I said before, that every student keeps engaging and keeps working. I know that this is challenging at this time, but it is very important. I emailed all Year 11s directly yesterday.
Remote learning: You know that our remote learning provision is a blend of live lessons and work set - the policy is on our website - we allow our teachers professional discretion to do the best for their students and a variety of strategies are being used across the school. It is interesting to note that last week 83% of the teachers surveyed used live lessons. These are not always the best approach to every lesson, but it is positive to see that the percentage is so high.
WLD E-library: We are developing our e-library of resources linked to subjects. English has been updated today with the reading lists for each year group for this term - https://www.waltonledale.lancs.sch.uk/curriculum/e-library/spring-term
Wellbeing Challenge: Mrs Sweeney, our PSHE Co-ordinator, has set a series of wellbeing challenges for all our students - you will find the details here. Try them out!
It’s Competition Time! #beawinterfriend is a new social media initiative to try and encourage our school community to support friends and family through this current national lockdown promoting what you do on social media with the #beawinterfriend. There is now the opportunity to win some money too - see the news article here.
Best wishes
James Harris
Headteacher
Posted by James Harris
Category: WLD Updates
