Dear Parents / Guardians,

Welcome back to school, it has been fantastic to see students and teachers back in the school campus. For too long the campus has been very quiet with only Year 11 and EY students attending. We now have school buildings resonating with the energy and sounds of children learning.

Talking to students, teachers and parents, the response has been very similar. Everyone is grateful to be able to return to the school campus and interact socially with others. We have 90% of the students back in school smiling and learning.

I would like to take this opportunity to thank and praise everyone for the way they have embraced the SoPs. It is most important that we all follow the SoPs for our own protection and also to protect others.

Coming back to school has been quite a shock for both students and teachers. We have done some surveys this week which show that many students have struggled with the transition. Many students have complained of being hungry during lessons as they have been able to eat when they want when learning from home. Many have also found coming to school and being in lessons has been much more tiring than learning from home. It will certainly take a while to return to something like normal.

The Secondary school has taken the decision to remove homework until 29th March so that students can focus on getting back into the routine of being in school. They do have assessments at the moment which are normal at this time 10 weeks into the school term but they have been a shock to some after 5 days physically in school.

I would like parents to continue to talk to their children about being in school and the SoPs. As with the brief examples above, there are challenges to being back in school and it is very important that parents and children acknowledge these challenges as that is the first step to recovery. Please don’t forget that we have counsellors in school that can help if children want to talk to someone.

Stay safe

Peter Wells