To staff, parents and pupils.
I do hope that you have had a good Christmas holiday and managed to spend some quality time with family and friends, celebrating this wonderful time of the year, as well as keeping yourselves safe and well.
As you will probably be aware, yesterday the government announced new plans for the re-opening of secondary schools across the country and placed many areas of the UK into Tier 4, (The highest COVID-19 government restrictions category), including Lancashire! Once again the lack of consultation with schools, constantly changing government guidance, poor timing and short notice is not helpful for all of us!
In order to prepare for mass testing of staff and pupils only vulnerable pupils and children of critical workers will be allowed to return to face to face learning on site at school, from Tuesday 5th January. All other pupils, including those of exam groups (Y11 and Y10) will work remotely online for the first week of term.
At the moment, pupils of exam groups (Y11 and possibly Y10) will return to face to face learning on site from Monday 11th January and all other pupils will return to face to face learning on site from Monday 18th January.
However, the Prime Minister in his news conference yesterday, also made it very clear that these timescales and arrangements are fluid and may change as a result of high rates of infections in some areas of the country.
During the next couple of days we will be working on the logistics of this late change of arrangements and provide an update (as best as we can) for governors, staff, parents and pupils on Sunday 3rd January.
In the meantime I hope you have a good new year but please ensure you follow the government Tier 4 guidelines and only celebrate with your immediate family bubble at home!
Mr X Bowers
Headteacher