We had a productive INSET day on Friday; the main focus was planning for, and learning new skills to enhance our students’ experience of remote learning.  As you know, we had our first positive cases amongst students last week and, as a result, a small number of Y12 and Y13 students are self-isolating.  Please be aware that the guidance from Public Health England has recently changed and secondary schools are being strongly advised to only isolate those students who have had definite close contact with a positive case during the infectious period.  This is different to the  guidance to earlier this term, when other secondary schools were advised that whole year group bubbles should self-isolate.

If a member of your household develops coronavirus symptoms, please remember that the whole household should self-isolate until you have received the results of a test.   We understand the guidance can be confusing and so please refer to our ‘Guide to Parents about Covid absence’ if you are unsure.  You may also find this infographic about cold, flu and coronavirus symptoms useful:

During the INSET day, we also developed our understanding of our new system to track and develop our students’ attitudes to learning.  We believe this initiative will have a positive impact on how all our students approach their learning.  Please look out for more information to follow in the next couple of weeks.

In the coming week, Year 7 students will take three assessments to support the school in understanding their current ability levels. CAT4 tests are nationally recognised cognitive reasoning assessments which can be used to inform how we best plan learning and to estimate expected GCSE grades. This is especially important this year in light of the absence of Y6 SATs. All schools in Chorus Education Trust will be utilising CATs tests to help establish end of year targets and final exam targets for current Y7 students.  

Well done to all the Y11 and Y13 students who attended their extra lessons before and after school last week.  All students have been informed when their sessions are and their timetables have been updated.

Finally, we have had an issue in the local area today with the internet supply. This has meant that our email system and phone lines are out of action. All phone calls are diverted to Westfield School who can forward any urgent messages to us by mobile phone. We will let you know when the internet issue has been resolved. Thank you for your patience in the mean time.

Best wishes,

Sarah Sims
Head of Silverdale School