Arrangements for School Opening in September - Year 11

1. Transitional days reminder 

The Transition day for Year 11 is:

  • Thursday, 3rd September at 9:30am until 2:45pm

Students should access MS Teams for school work during the days they are not in school. They will then return on Wednesday, 9th September at 9.00am.

2. Advised ‘control measures’ that have been put into place to keep your child safe

  • Students will experience transitional days where key safety information will be shared and they will be given time to understand and question this information with a member of our teaching team.
  • For the majority of the time students will be placed consistent protective group, often referred to as ‘bubbles’ for their lessons as they return to school. For students in Year 11 students will be in the same groups for English, Science and Maths, which we are calling common core groups. These groups will be communicated to students during their transition day in school in September. For a proportion of the timetable students will be accessing their option subjects with different groups of students within their Year group bubble.
  • Students in all Year groups will be given base classrooms as much as possible to reduce movement around the school building.
  • Students in each Year group will follow a staggered school timetable that will mean differing starts and end times to the school day (see timetable breakdown below for your child’s specific Year group timings).
  • There will be a controlled entry into the building. Each morning students will arrive no more than 10 minutes before their school start time and line up in a designated part of the school playground. Students will be met here by a designated member of staff and escorted into the building. Further information about how this will work will be shared with students during their transition days in school. For their first day back, parents will receive a letter during the summer holidays that will specify what location of the playground students should go to and what colour line they should wait in.
  • The school environment has been deep cleaned and there is a process of frequent cleaning of high contact areas by an onsite housekeeping team.
  •  Students will be given the opportunity to increase the washing or sanitising of hands before and after lessons. The school is lucky to have good handwashing facilities around the school and in addition to this there are a large number of hand sanitiser units being installed around the school.
  • Students will be given separate lunch sittings, in separate venues, to other Year groups.
  • Students will also be given separate social spaces for lunch time.

3. Timetable overview for your child’s Year group starting 9th September 2020
 

Timings Activity
9:00 – 10:00 Period 1
10:00 – 11:00 Period 2
11:00 – 11:30 Lunch
11:30 – 12:30 Period 3
12:30 – 13:30 Period 4
13:30 – 14:30 Period 5
14:30 – 14:50 Form Time
14:50 End of day


4. Curriculum offer

The decisions made around the timetable have enabled us to ensure Year 9 students receive their chosen option subjects from the start of Year 11.

Unfortunately, in order to ensure students can experience a full range of options subjects and ensure we can maintain the integrity of class bubbles as consistently as possible, with the least amount of movement, we have had to temporarily change the form groupings of Year 9 students, as the time spent in forms will now be with students who they will be taught core lessons with. As part of our plan for the Autumn term, we will be ensuring we organise key times where students can spend time with their form tutor for some extended periods of time. By organising it this way it enables us to manage the movement involved in this closely. Students will spend their transitional day back in school with their original form tutor and groupings will be communicated to them at this point.

5. Mobile Phones Policy

  • Our aim as we return to high school in September is to re-connect with each other, to move forward and to challenge ourselves. We have spent enough time in front of a screen and it is now time to talk. 
  • We have previously allowed students to access mobile phones at break time and lunchtime in school, as they can be useful to support learning. Over the past few months we know that access to online learning through mobile phones has been invaluable. However, as we return to school we now want students to make the most of any social contact time that they have. Therefore, students will have to switch off their phones and store them in their bags from the start of the school day until the final bell. In case of an emergency, parents or guardians can reach their child by calling the school. 

6. Uniform and equipment expectations

  • Students will be expected to wear full school uniform, however, we will be moving to Year group specific ties. These ties will be provided by the school to Years 7, 8 and 9. Year 10 will wear the same tie as last year and Year 11 will be given the usual Year 11 tie. 
  • Due to the controlled measures that we need to put into place there are restrictions about the use of changing rooms. This obviously effects PE lessons. We think that it is really important that our students are still able to access PE, therefore the temporary timetable created for students will incorporate PE lessons on specific days for each Year group. For the Year group’s identified day for PE, students will be required to come dressed to school in their school PE kit. By this we mean that they would wear their school PE polo t-shirt and their school black PE jogging trousers. If students usually wear the shorts, then they should wear their usual trousers or skirt over the top of these during the day. All students should then wear their blazer or jumper over the top of their PE t-shirt during lessons. We realise this this is not ideal but this will only be required once per week for each Year group. 
  • Students will need to ensure that they bring their own equipment for lessons. They will need a pencil case with the full range of stationary to avoid the sharing of resources and increasing the risk of transferring the virus. It is advisable that students have as a minimum: 2 pens, a pencil and a ruler. It would be helpful, but not compulsory, if students also had: pencil crayons, a small glue stick and mathematical equipment. 
  • Students will need to ensure that they have a bag where they can keep their books and required equipment. Due to limiting movement around the building, students will not be able to access their lockers in September, however as the majority of their lessons will be in the same room this should alleviate the need for lockets to some extent. 

7. Student Attendance

  • It is expected that all students will be in school full time in September. 

However, student should not attend if:

  • They are displaying symptoms or if they have received a positive Coronavirus (COVID-19) test result. The medical advice is to immediately self-isolate at home for at least 7 days from when your symptoms started 
  • If someone in their household has symptoms of Coronavirus (COVID-19), then they you must stay at home for 14 days. The 14-day period starts from the day when the first person in the household became ill. 
  • We ask that usual attendance procedures are followed; please telephone the attendance line before 8:30am - 0161 882 1182. If a student has tested positive, we ask that you ring this number and let us know as soon as possible. 
  • If a student becomes ill during the day, parents will be contacted and asked to collect them as soon as possible. Students will be isolated whilst waiting. We would recommend that parents book an appointment to get a COVID-19 test and inform school as soon as the results come in. 

8. Medical Conditions 

Every term we routinely update our medical records and the same applies for September. If your child has a medical condition that has been recently diagnosed or that the condition around it has changed please inform the school before they return to school. 

9. The school’s COVID-19 warning process of communication from school to parents 

In line with the recent government guidance and in light of the fact that we will be welcoming our whole school community back into the building throughout September, it is important that we outline our response if cases of COVID-19 are detected in the future. We will want to communicate this information to you as quickly as possible.

If a case of COVID-19 is detected and we believe that your child may have had contact with the case, we will alert you to this by sending a message via SchoolComms or the school text message system. We will then follow this with an email with further information. It is probable that this information will inform you that your child will need to isolate for 14 days. This will be an initial safety response whilst Public Health England investigates the matter further. When we have additional information we will follow up the initial text with an email/phone call to clarify matters further and offer further guidance / information.

If you do get the initial message, please follow national guidelines and isolate for 14 days in order for further cases to be avoided and to ensure we can get students back into school as quickly and as safely as possible.

Please note that the details on the steps to take are regularly changing, and we will update parents at the start of the year about this situation again. 

The Year Group ‘bubbles’ are separate entities, therefore, if you have siblings in different “bubbles” it does not mean that they have to isolate. Isolation is only for people that have had the potential to be in proximity to the affected member of the bubble.

The swifter the response the safer our community will be. However, if after receiving the text you still feel concerned visit our website where we’ve collated our CHS COVID-19 RESPONSE frequently asked questions. However, if after receiving the text you still feel concerned visit our website where we’ve collated our CHS COVID-19 RESPONSE frequently asked questions, based upon questions from members of our community over the past 6 months and these can be found using the following link: 

Covid 19 Guidance

10. Distance learning 

We have all learnt a great deal recently about how effective online learning, and we want to use this to keep improving the school. Following the recent parent and students surveys we have made the decision to continue to use MS Teams to support home learning and home study from September. We will give students and parents more information about this at the start of term. 
If students have to work at home for any length of time, due to self-isolation or household isolation, they will be able to use MS Teams to access the work to enable them to keep up with their learning. 
If the situation occurs and the school has to close partially or fully during the Autumn Term, then we have planned for the distance learning programme to recommence. To help students feel more prepared for this we will spend some time with them in the Autumn term teaching them about effective learning habits for online learning. 

11. Student Understanding

We are aware that some students and parents may feel that they have not done as much as they 'should have' or ‘as others have'. First of all, it is important to acknowledge that this feeling is natural given the fact that students have not been with their teachers for over a term. 
We have anticipated this and are asking you not to worry as we have a plan. Our teachers have been looking at how we map what each student has learnt and what content needs to be taught again to groups and even whole classes so they can master the content; careful planning means we have time. This approach will also allow us to balance out wider wellbeing considerations which are equally important. 

12. Wellbeing 

The sudden entry into the lockdown period, the subsequent speculation around when school would return and the ‘new normal’ means that many of our young people have experienced periods of uncertainty and change. 

Your child might have lots of different feelings about returning to school, perhaps they are excited to see their friends, or maybe they feel anxious or worried about going back, some people might be feeling frightened, or stressed about the work they have missed. Whatever they are feeling, it is a completely normal reaction to change and uncertainty. Everybody will be feeling a mixture of emotions and our whole school Mental Fitness plan addresses this.

The transition days have been set up to have a focused session on Mental Fitness, allowing students to reflect on their experiences during lockdown and think about building their resilience in an uncertain world.

The theme of Mental Fitness will run strongly through our Pastoral Curriculum this academic year and will also be addressed in the Academic Curriculum, using the ‘Restore’ approach, designed to reconnect our community, bring back routines and celebrate the joy of learning.

If you have any particular concerns about your child and would like further support, please contact your child’s Head of Year.

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