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

Parent Update 5th January 2021

5th January 2021

Dear Parents,

We find ourselves back in a national lockdown. I know this will bring a range of emotions, and our particular thoughts are with our year 11 and 13 students as we once again find that exams in the summer will not be taking place as we had expected. There are still many uncertainties as to how year 11 and 13 students are to be awarded grades for their qualifications, and as soon as we have any answers we will pass them on. For now, students should be engaging in their learning just as if nothing has changed; it will all be important knowledge for their next steps beyond their current year, there may well be some need to assess competency, and also it gives a continued routine and purpose to our days.

What has been great has been the calm and focused way that remote learning has started today. Teachers have been delivering learning at lesson time as per the timetable. This may involve conducting live lessons where those are appropriate. It's worth noting that these are not always the best way to deliver and assess the specific learning for that lesson, and teachers will be using a range of tools to do so. Our remote learning plan is attached for parents so you can see what we are expecting of staff, students and also parents during this time.

Positive Cases

Please keep informing us of any positive cases of pupils within the school community using attendance@st-annes.uk.com so that we know. We were only informed of one pupil testing positive over the Christmas break, which seems a little surprising. Please do keep us up to date if that changes, or if you have yet to tell us about cases over Christmas. Thank you.

Key Worker Family and Vulnerable Children Provision

We are still OPEN as a site for key worker families and vulnerable children. We had around 40 students onsite today. Families have already signed up for this week before the announcements about national lockdown were made. We will be accepting new registrations on a weekly basis, starting with the week beginning the 11th January, from tomorrow. A further email will come out tomorrow for this, and there will be links on our website for each weekly registration.

Online safety

As we move into more online working, please make sure you know what your child is doing - we've become aware of greater use of Discord, which has an age-limit of 13 and allows for strangers of all ages to be in touch with your children. Click here for more information on Discord.

Free School Meals

We are delighted to inform you that the Local Authority has funded supermarket vouchers for children who normally get a Free School Meal; there are different arrangements for primary schools.

The voucher is worth £10 per child who is eligible, and is for the week commencing 4^th January. There will only be one voucher per child. If you have more than one child at St Anne’s who is eligible, you will get an email for each child.

We have arranged for the vouchers to be sent to the email address that we have on file for you at school. We are expecting that they will arrive today.

The vouchers work the same way as the vouchers that were issued at Christmas.

Please check your emails for an email from “Edenred”. You do not need a printer to be able to use the voucher, just a phone.

If you have any questions, please email the school at info@st-annes.uk.com for the attention of Emma Wright with your child’s full name and tutor group and we will get back to you in working hours.

We are still investigating how free school meals will be offered beyond the end of the week; whether these will be vouchers organised nationally or provision delivered locally. We will send out more information as soon as we have it.

Thank you for your continued support

God Bless

James Rouse

Headteacher

Remote Learning Contingency Plan.docx