Dear parents and carers,
We are now in the 8th week of what is already a long and tiring term for our students, but it perhaps feels all the more tiring within the context of online learning. Our students’ efforts over the last 7 weeks have been nothing short of remarkable and we have nothing but admiration for them for this. Our students’ wellbeing and progress is always at the forefront of our mind and we have come to a point where we feel it is appropriate to take steps to reduce some of the screen time which we are asking of them at present.
To enable our students to maintain their energy levels and motivation for online learning, we will be ending taught online sessions daily at 14.15 until the end of this term. In place of a taught session, we’ll be setting students a daily activity or challenge in that day’s morning Crew session. Crew’s will choose from a selection of activities and should aim to complete them in the last session of the day from 2:15pm. We hope that reducing screen time and asking students to be more active will help to avoid screen fatigue and maintain wellbeing as we move into the last two weeks of term.
We hope that students, and their families, (where convenient!) will engage with the activities which include things such as; taking a family walk or completing a photography challenge etc. There is a whole menu of ideas which Crew will decide upon in the morning. Crew Leaders and the rest of the Crew will then check in on the activity the next day to see how everybody got on.
We understand that there may be some concerns around the loss of session time, but with 2 weeks left to go, there shouldn’t be a massive impact and we hope that we’ll actually see a positive impact on the remaining sessions of term. As always, we want to make sure everybody makes it to the top of the mountain, and this is just one of the ways we’re going to achieve that.
For Year 11, Wednesday’s Common Mission sessions will stay the same if they are working towards a qualification such as Diploma in Engineering or Sport, but other intervention sessions will not take place online. XP16 sessions will also continue as normal.
Our in-school provision will take place within the same hours as normal, but students will complete the ‘Screens Off’ activities at school.
If you have any questions or concerns, please do not hesitate to make contact with your child’s Crew Leader.
We will release a response to the Prime Minister’s announcements regarding the reopening of schools shortly.
Best wishes,
Jamie Portman