Dear Parent/Carers,

I hope you and your families are all well during these very ‘different’ times.  I also want to thank you for the support you are giving to us and your children as they continue to work from home.

Working and learning from home is obviously not the same, nor can we expect it to be, but I’ve been so encouraged with the response of our pupils to the work and resources that we have provided for them on our website.  I know that many of your children have been communicating with their teachers during working hours and using their school email addresses which is great and we continue to monitor that there is sufficient and new work available at the start of each week for our pupils to tackle.  The next time that work will be refreshed will be after Easter as it is equally important for pupils and their teachers to have a break, albeit slightly different to the one we were all looking forward to and expecting!

The accessibility of our online resources has coped well with the demand, the longer this situation continues though, we may need to review our practice and I am sure I can rely on your ongoing patience and cooperation with this.  Please can I also ask that you familiarise yourself with a paper ‘Teaching and Learning During Enforced Closure’ within the ‘For Students’ section of our website.

As you know, St Mary’s is closed for the vast majority of pupils but we have remained open for a very small number of children whose parents are key workers or who need to be here for other reasons as specified by the government.  This has been working well, we only have a skeleton staff and everything feels quite empty, but I’m proud of the provision we are able to deliver in this difficult period and of the help we are hopefully providing for our frontline services.

I am missing having your children with us and feel especially for those pupils in Year 11 whose time at St Mary’s looks to have been cut short.  We did manage to put some leavers’ celebrations together hastily on the Friday and I hope they enjoyed these together with signing shirts and taking photos.  They are a lovely group of young people and we await details of how their GCSEs will be assessed and awarded.  Please keep these young people in your thoughts and prayers at a time of obvious anxiety for them.

Thanks again for your understanding, patience and support and I hope you and your families continue to stay well and look after each other.  Do let us know if there is anything you think we may be able to help with.

Best wishes

Stuart Wetson
Headteacher