Letter to Parents: End of Term February 2022

17 February 2022

 

Dear Parents and Carers,

 

As we approach the end of this half term, I would like to thank you for all your continued support as we work together as a school community, raising standards and transforming young peoples’ lives. 

 

We have had an extremely successful half term with the majority of students focused on learning and doing their absolute best every single day. 

 

I wanted to take this opportunity to appreciate your ongoing support in what continues to be very challenging circumstances at Outwood Academy Shafton, linked to the ongoing impact of the pandemic.   Unfortunately at times throughout this half term we have had to switch students to remote learning as a result of high staff absence and the fact that securing regular agency supply staff still remains particularly difficult. I can assure you that my decision to switch to remote learning in the academy is never taken lightly and only when staff absence means that I cannot ensure the health and safety standards required to remain fully open.  

 

There have been so many amazing events that have taken place this term as a result of the hard work, dedication and resilience of our staff and students. Our revision Festival for Y11 was a very successful event and it was lovely to welcome people visiting the building on that night.  Our wealth of careers events have been informative for our students and have included our British army resilience workshop.  We have also celebrated our ‘love to month’ and children’s mental health week.  We have had vast array of sporting activities and events every week.  We continue to develop and offer enriching opportunities and experiences for all; it is brilliant to see some normality returning to school life.

 

I do have to ask for some community support around two issues of concern. Firstly, the increasing number of students arriving late to lessons and on a morning to school, which is impacting on their learning time and the consistency of the school day.  Students’ must arrive no later than 8:25 every morning.  After 8:25 our student entrance doors are closed and students must then enter through the late door.  We are aware that roads surrounding the area are often busy so please consider this in your departure time. This is causing significant issues for a number of our students as they are gaining an increasing number of detentions as well as missing essential learning.  Within the school day students are allocated 5 minutes to move around the academy and arrive at lessons.  This is sufficient time and we have placed some students on monitoring cards as a result of their high number of sanctions for being late. In addition, it is important that student absence is recorded accurately, could I please ask that you contact our attendance team with reasons for absence on the day of absence. You can report a student absence by calling 01226 717730 ext 208 or via email at attendance@shafton.outwood.com

In addition we have some concerning reports about some young people’s behaviour on the buses and in the local community and we would appreciate you having conversations about why this is unacceptable.  We will continue to educate via our school behaviour curriculum where the overarching aim is to promote positive behaviour, to ensure our students grow into safe, respectful and responsible citizens and to allow them to learn in a calm environment. We want all of our students, during their time with us, to reach the top of the pyramid, meaning that they leave us as good citizens, and this is the rationale for our approach. 

 

We have some exciting and informative events planned for next half term in order to continue to build our inclusive caring culture and ethos, these include:

I wanted to take this opportunity to remind you of our uniform policy. Our high standards continue to remain a focus every half term as our students deserve the best. Any students wearing jewellery around the academy, once they arrive through our school doors will be expected to put this in an envelope, leave at reception and gain a 30 minute lunchtime detention. We appreciate your support reminding our young people of this matter.

 

I hope you all have a restful and enjoyable half term break and we look forward to welcoming students back refreshed and ready to work hard over the next half term.

 

Yours sincerely,

 

 

Principal

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End of term Letter Feb 2022.docx.pdf 396 KB