Dear Parent/Carer
I hope your son/daughter has returned from Ullswater full of tales of their outward bound adventures. It was incredible to see them make new friends, begin to form strong bonds with their crew and crew leaders, and rise to the challenges put in front of them. I could not help but be impressed by our new students. They were compassionate, courageous, respectful and showed integrity in equal measure. We could not have had a stronger start to our school year.
Regarding w/c 6th September
We are expecting students in school for an 8.30am start so they must arrive in school by 8.25am at the latest. There will be staff in school and supervising from 8 am.
We will finish formal sessions at 3.15pm however students are able to stay in school until 4.30pm. There will be a suite of activities and extended study after school – more details on this in the coming weeks. From now, students are able to stay until 4.30pm Monday-Thursday, but must either be studying or in an after school activity. Students must leave school by 3.30pm on Friday.
There are more details on our frequently asked questions about kit, but students will need a school bag with the following:
- A filled water bottle
- Pencil case including: pens, pencils, ruler, eraser and pencil sharpener
- Headphones β ideally not expensive ones, for example here
I would also suggest that students bring a healthy snack for break time – no confectionery (sweets), fizzy drinks or energy drinks please as we do not allow these in school.
Catering
I have been in touch with the Local Authority catering team and they will be providing meals on our behalf. This will be in the form of a packed lunch option for a couple of weeks and will then transition to hot meals when our kitchen is set up. Gateshead has a system for parents to pay for school meals and we will be in touch with details for this over the course of next week. In the meantime if your child requires a packed lunch they simply need to request one from their crew leader when they register in the morning.
Below are the details I have been provided with regarding the packed lunch offer for the next two weeks.
Covid Testing
We will be carrying out Covid testing in line with government guidance when students return to school on Monday and again on Thursday morning. I am not anticipating this to cause any issues as things went very smoothly last week.
The current guidance is that from that point, you should test your son or daughter twice per week (ideally Sundays and Wednesdays) until the end of September. At the end of September the government will review their guidance. This means that the first time you should test your son or daughter at home will be Sunday 12th September. We can provide kits for you to do this.
Site Refurbishment
In other news – most of our furniture has arrived and our classrooms are fully set up although we still need to move some pieces of furniture around. We have our internet connection and brand new TV screens in every room. There will be some ongoing work to the outside of the building and we are still waiting for some orders to be processed and delivered. I am still waiting for confirmation of our iPad delivery although I believe it is scheduled for next week.
We have everything we need to begin teaching and are looking forward to starting our first expedition with our students. As usual if you have any questions about your or daughter please get in touch with your childβs crew leader in the first instance or email general enquiries to [email protected]
Thank you for your ongoing support, the whole staff crew are very much looking forward to seeing our students on Monday morning.
Best wishes
Mark Lovatt
Principal