Dear parent/carer,
I hope this update finds you and your families well as we approach the Easter break. It has been an exceptional effort from everyone this term moving swiftly back from remote provision to face to face, mass lateral flow testing and face masks in the classroom. The students have been magnificent. Our focus in these first few weeks has been to ensure that our familiar behavioural routines and expectations are re-established and that the positive relationships developed in lockdown continue, they have settled incredibly. On top of that we have had three virtual parent’s evenings, distributed the final batch of Chromebooks and completed assessments for all subjects in all year groups. Year seven win the prize for the highest attendance at virtual parents evening with a staggering 1320 appointments, thank you to all of those parents/carers in all years who have attended appointments to discuss the progress of your son/daughter. There simply is no better use of our partnership than to talk progress together. Termly results are now available in the ‘My Child at School’ app, we are currently working with Bromcom to ensure that the attitude to learning grades also becomes available soon. In the next term we will be using this information to refine our curriculum further and continue to focus our teaching so that all students keep up their fantastic progress. As parents and carers, you can support by being involved in the knowledge organiser strategy, available on our website and in the Google Classrooms, quizzing them on the content contained within them. The more information students are required to recall and the more frequently they are required to do so develops physical changes within the brain which in turn increases the capacity to retain more information and apply it within lessons. Little and often is key.
Home testing
Many thanks for your support with home testing. This morning all students were provided with further testing kits that enable testing to continue over the Easter holidays, if you identify a positive result please continue to the COVID portal and seek a confirmatory PCR test at your local centre. During the holidays we would like to move to Sunday and Wednesday testing between 5pm and 7pm. This means that all students will have been tested in the evening prior to their return on Monday 19th April.
National Online Safety
As part of our digital strategy and commitment to safeguarding online, Mascalls Academy has been working towards becoming a National Online Safety accredited school. All staff have been undertaking training from the platform and the next important step is for us to share resources with our parents and carers in order to effectively safeguard students on their devices when they are not at school.
We ask that all parents sign up by the 18th April 2021 using the following link: http://nationalonlinesafety.com/enrol/mascalls-academy .
Each semester there will be new material available to access through the ‘Watch List’ area of the site. The materials will be tailored by our pastoral and safeguarding teams and will consist of training courses for parents and updates regarding issues and topics that we feel will support the work we are delivering within the curriculum and issues we are dealing with within the academy surrounding the use of online platforms. It is crucial that parents/carers and the academy work as a team to be educated in the online world our young people are exposed to and the National Online Safety platform will support us in this aim and in turn for you to monitor their use and for us to educate them in what the appropriate use is.
Over the Easter period we will be expecting further updates from the Department of Education on their prevention measures in schools after Easter. Until that information has been updated, please assume that all current recommendations being implemented will continue. As soon as any updates or changes are received parents/carers will be informed at the earliest opportunity.
Finally, from me, my thanks once more go to all of the members of our academy community. Have a happy and safe Easter. We look forward to seeing everyone again after a well earned break.
Your sincerely
Mr W Monk
Principal
