WLD Update for Parents & Carers - Saturday 25 February 2023

A number of important notices this week.  In particular, if your child travels by school bus, please take note of the update on the bus provision below.

All years

• Attendance: Please can you continue to notify us of student absence via the Classcharts Absence Reporting App.  This system is working well.
• Buses:  As I said in my update at the start of this term (6 January) our current bus providers, Moving People, gave us notice at the end of December that they could no longer run our bus services as they were not financially viable. They will cease providing our services at the end of this term. As you would expect, we have re-tendered for the bus provision. We received the tenders from transport providers at the start of this week. Unfortunately, the prices that we are being quoted are very much higher than those that families are currently paying. We are rapidly seeking a way forward with this and exploring all options and we will keep you updated. We are very aware that the current bus provision ceases at the end of March.
• NEU Strike Day: Tuesday 28th February: In the parent & carer update on 10 February I notified everyone that the National Education Union is taking strike action on Tuesday 28 February.  When looking at the national news, please be aware that different dates apply to different regions of the country.  The strike action is not against the school, it is against the government. As I said in my previous messages, most of our teachers belong to the NEU and therefore we cannot open the school safely on that day.  All teachers who are not on strike will deliver their lessons from school using Teams following their normal timetables and our usual online provision is available to all students.  Year 11, in particular, have a comprehensive revision guide to guide their study on that day.
• Spare Uniform: If any families have any spare uniform that their child has grown out of and in good condition, we would be grateful if you would be kind enough to send them into school for other students to borrow. We are in need of trousers, skirts, blazers and possibly shoes. Thanks for your help.

Year 8

• HPV E-consent Link: Please see email sent out earlier in the week with the EConsent form.  Closing date for completion is 13th March.  Any problems please contact the Immunisation Team on 0333 358 3397 option 3 followed by option 1 

Year 10

• Work Experience: Please see message sent out earlier in the week regarding Work Experience.

Year 11

• French and German: The French and German Mock Speaking exams will take place Thursday 9th and Friday 10th March.  Please see emails sent out regarding when your child will be having theirs.
• Revision Guide:  the revision process has now started across all subjects and the revision guide is a vital document.  It has been emailed to all students, physical copies were given out at parents & carers evening and it is available on our website.  It is essential that every Year 11 is spending a couple of hours each evening on revision - the guide tells them exactly what to do and how do do it...  Success in the summer depends upon hard work now.

Best wishes

James Harris

Headteacher