With the date now set for all students to return to the secondary school campus, all teachers and staff are looking forward to getting back to the classroom based learning environment. Although we have already been teaching year 11 students on site, for Year 10 and Key stage 3 students and parents who have been so patient, it has definitely been a long time coming and it's great to see the signs indicating that face to face learning can resume.

All teachers are now reviewing all planning and class based administrative areas to ensure that the return to face to face learning is maximising the opportunity. Additionally all SoPs are also being reviewed and physical distancing and staggered leaving times will still remain as part of the SoP.

There are some elements that we would like to revisit for the learners who are coming back, are House competitions and the Student Council. These are great opportunities to develop leadership skills and to show their individual talents that perhaps have been limited due to home based learning.

Some of the focus will also be to obtain some data of the learning attained by students by class based assessments. Within a few weeks we will be having PTCs and term 1 reports will be issued. It will be important that all teachers have enough assessment data to clearly inform parents on their progress whether they have been at home learning or in the classroom. These assessments will be directed by the respective HoD and in some cases unannounced tests and quizzes will be arranged to test retention of knowledge.

Finally I want to thank all parents for their patience and support over the past few weeks. It has again been a time of uncertainty, however, all our learners and staff have been kept safe and well and this is down to all stakeholders being vigilant in following good self care strategies.