St Anne's Catholic School St Anne's Catholic School

Parent Update 11th September 2020

11th September 2020

Dear parent,

As we come to the end of our first week of the September term, I wanted to thank you for the way that we have worked together to get your children back in to school and learning. It has been a massive success: After the welcome sessions on Tuesday, we have had normal lessons since Wednesday morning for all year groups. As of today, our attendance is at 96%: this is in line with attendance last year. The attendance of year 7 is a whopping 98%! Thank you for your trust in what we have done to adapt the site and our processes to keep everyone on site safe. It has been fantastic to see happy children and young people around the school, feeling safe and getting on with their learning. It is clear they needed to be back and needed the routine.

As we have started the term and seen all the plans that we had devised played out, there are a few reminder and tweaks that parents can help us with as we continue into the term.

PE Kits

On days that students have PE, they should wear their PE kit to school. The year 7-10 PE kit allows shorts or trackpants bought from Skoolkit. As it gets colder, the shorts might not be appropriate for travelling to and from school. On colder days, years 7-10 should wear the school PE trackpants as per the uniform if possible, and if not those, then plain blue tracksuit bottoms. Year 11 should wear plain navy blue jogging bottoms as per the uniform. Leggings are not allowed.

Face coverings

The adherence to the expectations on face coverings has been near-enough universal. Thank you for your support with this. Some girls are still wearing them around the necks when they are talking to friends outside or eating. Your help with reminding them that they are to be worn fully, or removed and placed in a sealable plastic bag when not in use, will help keep them hygienic.

Transport to and from school

Some girls are still waiting to be picked up by parents at the school gate at the end of the day, especially around Rockstone Place. Please can you arrange with your daughter a place away from the school site to be picked up to reduce congestion at the exits. Also, it is illegal to park on the double yellow lines around the school. We would not want you to receive a fine from the traffic wardens that regularly patrol the area.

Pastoral Systems and Attendance

We have added a new page to the September Reopenings section of our website on our adapted pastoral systems and what to do if your child is off ill. It can be found at: https://www.st-annes.uk.com/web/pastoral_systems_and_attendance. Please note that absence can be notified by email to attendance@st-annes.uk.com. You must use the email address registered on our system to send the message. You can also call the school number as usual.

Other information:

The school library goes virtual!

While restrictions mean that the school library can’t be accessed, our librarian has created a virtual library for students to access. You can see what they can see by going to: https://uk.accessit.online/sta24/#!dashboard, which contains loads of activities, including the Bookopoly Challenge!

Parent Information Evenings

There are a number of parent information evenings for years 8-12 that we placed in our calendar before we knew what this term's restrictions would be. You will not be surprised to hear that these are cancelled in their normal form and instead an online version will be coming out to you in the coming weeks.

Open Evenings

Our open evenings for entry into year 7 and into our sixth form will be virtual events this year rather than in person. More information will be coming out in the next few weeks.

Other Dates for the term

Date	Time	Who	What?
Thursday 17 September	-	-	St Hildegard’s feast day
Friday 18 September	Lunchtime	All years	Extra-curricular remote launch event
Monday 21-Tuesday 29 September	-	Year 13	Rearranged Pre-Public Exams
Thursday 1 October	-	-	St Thérèse’s feast day
Tuesday 13 October	-	-	Debrabant Day (Founder’s Day)
Monday 26 – Friday 30 October	-	-	Half term
Monday 2 – Friday 13 November	-	Year 11	Pre-public exams
Wednesday 25 November	-	Year 9	Reports due home
Friday 27 November	-	Year 13	Reports due home
Friday 27 November	-	All years	School closed: staff training
Monday 30 November & Tuesday 1 December	-	Year 11	Sixth Form taster events
Friday 4 December	-	Year 11	PPE results day
Tuesday 8 December	After school	Year 9	Parents’ Evening
Friday 18 December	-	All years	Early Closure: 12.30

We wish you a good weekend and look forward to continuing seeing your daughters and sons on Monday!

God Bless

James Rouse

Headteacher

St Anne's Catholic School