Friday 21 August 2020

Dear Parents and Carers
Welcome back as we step-up preparations for the start of a new term and year. I do hope that you have had a great rest and break and that your children are increasingly eager, if not desperate, to get back to school.

A level and GCSE Results
I also hope that you have seen our website and the information we have provided on the superb achievements of our A level and GCSE students. If you have not visited our website recently, please do so that you can share our immense pride in the culmination of those students’ five or seven years of hard work at our school. This is not a year to trade statistics, except to say that both year groups were very successful indeed.

Back to School in September
Naturally, everyone’s attention is now turning towards the full reopening of our school in September. I hope that you and your children read my final letter on 17 July. The final page briefly summarised how our school would adapt to ensure that we can safely resume school life and learning. I have copied and pasted that summary at the end of this letter for ease.

Back to School Guidance Booklet
In addition, I can now provide families with a more detailed guidance booklet. It was hard to decide what to include and what to leave out, but hope we have struck the right balance in setting out those things we believe all families are asking and will want to know. We will not be providing paper copies of this booklet but it will appear on our website for quick reference.

Back to School Risk Assessment
Meanwhile, I anticipate sharing our new risk assessment for the reopening our school in the middle of next week. The risk assessment will again be web based and therefore provide some helpful navigation features that allow you to read all, most or some of that information.

As you might imagine, we have addressed all of the information that schools have been asked to consider by the Departments for Health and Education, and Public Health England. Please keep an eye out for a further letter from me next week to introduce this risk assessment.

A Few Key Messages
1. Like me later this afternoon, I recommend that you continue to complete all of the normal preparations for going back to school. Whether this relates to school uniform, sports kit, stationery or school bags, it is a very normal September and your children will need all of the normal bits and bobs for school life.
2. Please note that you will need to provide your children with face coverings for school buses and public transport. Please see page 6 of the booklet for more details. Your children will not be wearing face coverings when they are on the school site.
3. If you drop off and or pick up your children each day then please revise your normal routines so that you drop-off and pick-up farther away from the school site than normal. Please see page 6 of the booklet for more details.
4. In the first instance, all students will have to enter (and leave) the school from Burford Road. Please see page 6 of the booklet for more details.
5. All students must bring a packed lunch on the first day of school. From day two, pre-ordered packed lunches will be available, but the canteen itself will be closed. Please see page 8 of the booklet for more details.
6. Higher Expectations: Please see page 8 of the booklet for more details about the ways in which lessons, homework and behaviour are going to be exemplary at CNS from September.
And finally…

Once you have read the booklet, if you have any questions then please direct them to the relevant head of year, or to a member of the leadership team as follows:
 Years 7 to 9: To Mrs De Bruyn on [email protected]
 Years 10 & 11: To Ms Hancock on [email protected]
 Sixth Form: To Mr Ward on [email protected]

Between us, we shall reply to families with any as-yet unanswered or specific questions.

Thank you for reading this letter and I shall be in touch with you again on Tuesday or Wednesday next week regarding how we shall reopen safely in less than two weeks’ time:
 Year 7s: First day back is on Wednesday 2 September 2020.
 Years 8 to 13: First day back is on Thursday 3 September 2020.

Yours faithfully
Mr Doherty

Headteacher

A Brief Summary of Our School in September 2020
What will be the same?
What will be different?

The school day will still begin at 8:40am for everyone. There will still be a registration period at the start of the day, followed by five one-hour lessons.

We are probably going to finish at 3:15pm so that you have more time to move between lessons. Each year group will be allocated one external door through which every student in their year group must arrive and depart.

You will have breaks between lessons.

You will probably have three breaks each day, each one lasting 25 minutes.

Your timetable will be completely normal: 25 lessons per week with all the normal subjects and range of teachers. Just like before, you will be with different students in different classes and options.

Rather than you moving around the entire site to go to your teachers’ classrooms, your teachers will be moving around school to deliver lessons to you in your year group zone.

You will still have all or some of your ‘specialist lessons’ in the normal rooms or spaces: art, computing, dance, drama, design and technology, music, PE and science.

The majority of your lessons will be in a suite of classrooms or ‘zone’ set aside for students in your year group. If you have a specialist lesson, your teacher will escort you out and back into your year group’s zone.

You will still be able to use the toilets, run around outside and have open door rooms during break times.

Depending on which year group you are in, you will be assigned your own toilets and social spaces so that each year group can remain separate.

After school clubs and activities will continue.

These will begin no earlier than Monday 21 September and will probably have to be with members of the same year group only.

All back to normal with how we all dress in September. Please study the guidance booklet on our website.

We will probably be allowing you to wear your PE kit into school on a day that you have PE (to avoid crowded changing rooms