Dear Families, 

Covid

Unfortunately, I am no longer able to report that we have had no confirmed cases in the community.  Since the last bulletin we have had 1 confirmed case. Thankfully, because the person's symptoms appeared on a Monday and they did not attend school that day they were not present in school during their infectious period so no staff or pupils were required to isolate.

As a precautionary measure, we contacted the families of pupils in the tutor group and received their verbal permission to administer a lateral flow test.  We also administered LFTs to all the staff team.  This was to see if we could identify anyone who was asymptomatic.  Thankfully all tests were negative.

Should we encounter a similar situation in the future we would follow the same procedure as we believe it helped us to identify if anyone was at risk. Additionally, it reassured staff and pupils and hopefully families.

Please be assured, we are continuing to follow all of our Covid 19 safety regime with the exception of expecting pupils to wear masks in the communal areas.  As it happens, most pupils who are able to wear masks have continued to do so.

Please can I ask that, if you have lateral flow test kits, you continue to complete twice weekly testing and register this on the NHS portal (as this informs our resupply of kits).  If your child did not complete the three tests in school but you would now like them to do so, please complete this online permission form.

If your child is running low on test kits please notify your child's form team via the link book or email and we will send further kits home.

Build

Our first two pupil groups have visited the building site this week.  One group are prospective work experience students who were discussing the opportunities available to them.  The other is our brand new explorer Scout group. Many thanks to MHS and Galliford Try staff for facilitating these visits.

Assembly

This week we celebrated International Day of Families which was on the 15th May. We looked at a myriad of different family groups and thought about what makes a family.  Dolly Parton's 'Family' along with Elton John's and Rina Sawayamas 'Chosen Family' helped us think about who makes a family and the assembly went on to look at how families differ around the globe. 

I was ably assisted by Jasmine who not only read out this week's certificates and awards but also a joke submitted by Gemma.

"Why shouldn't you trust a baby Salmon?
............Because its a little fishy!" 

We were joined by Satvinder Malhi, Work Related Learning Organiser from Education Development Trust and Desiree Noriega from IARS  who presented an award to Erin (Year 12) for her piece of artwork. (See the article below for more details).  Many congratulations for this fantastic achievement!

May I wish you all a wonderful weekend.

Mrs J Rigby
Headteacher