Blog #20 – w/c 22/02/2021

Hello and welcome back. I hope that you managed to get some well-deserved rest from school and/or home learning over the half term break.

HURRAY!

Well, some good news at last.

It seems that, following Boris Johnson’s recent announcement, the school will be re-opening on Monday 8^th March. I am not going to fill this week’s shortened Blog with specifics because I know that you have already been contacted a number of times regarding starting dates and times, permissions for lateral flow Covid testing, uniform and a host of other issues. My biggest focus has to be to celebrate the news and look forward to welcoming everyone back into school.

Needless to say, it won’t be quite as easy as picking up exactly where we left off and we are aware of the mammoth task that we will all share if we are going to get everyone’s learning back on track. We know that there will be a number of challenges to overcome, but that journey to social and academic recovery begins on 8^th March. Bring it on!

GCSEs

Ofqual have completed their consultation on GCSE and other exams in the Summer 2021 series. As it stands, there will be no exams as previously published. The exam boards will be sharing sample assessment papers, but the school is not under any obligation to use them. What has been agreed is that, students cannot be tested on content that they haven’t studied, and final grades will be based on teacher assessment. However, there WILL be a moderation process of some sort, although we don’t have all of the details of that yet. What is certain, is that we will need to be able to provide appropriate evidence of students’ work that supports the teacher-assessed grade for all subject areas, for all students. As such, we all have a busy few weeks ahead.

New Build

Here’s a slightly different angle of the new build at Blacon High School this week to give you an indication of the progress that is being made with our fantastic, bespoke development. As it transpires, most of the changes are happening on the inside at the moment so I hope to get in there very soon and expect to share some pictures with you in the next couple of weeks.

World Book Day

Thursday March 4^th is World Book Day. The English team will be sharing a host of virtual activities online and on Google Classroom but the bottom line is: steal some quiet time, find a warm, comfortable space, and lose yourself in a book. If you haven’t done this for a while, it’s a real treat.

A group of us have a book club at school and we meet, virtually, about once a month to share our thoughts on the book we have just read, chat, perhaps have a glass of wine and enjoy some social time. The book club started because we realised that we all enjoyed a good story, and decided to set some time aside each month to read a book. It is low-cost, great fun and a good way to keep in touch with friends. Maybe you could get together with a group of friends and start your own book group.

Finally…

I am conscious that this is a short blog this week, but I don’t want to bombard you with things to read when I know there is a lot of preparation for your return to school going on at home.

Get your uniform out, find your PE kit and get your school bags ready guys; we are all looking forward to welcoming you back into school during w/c 8^th March,