WA

20 April 2023

RE: Further Industrial Action

Dear Parents and Carers

I regret to inform you that further industrial action is scheduled for two days this term, inclusive of Thursday 27 April and Tuesday 2 May 2023.

Having reviewed the timetable for these two days, I cannot see a way to maintain appropriate staffing ratios and ensure the health and safety of the site – and with Year 11 and Year 13 examinations being on the horizon, these students have to be my first consideration. Additionally, the NEU (National Education Union) has agreed to a concession that they will support striking teachers attending for Year 11 and Year 13 lessons only; This is not guaranteed and again, they are not obliged to inform us. Therefore, we must work from a position of presumed absence.

To this end, on these two days, we will only be able to accommodate Year 11 and Year 13 being on school site. All students in Year 11 will receive their timetabled lesson, regardless of teacher absence, although it may be delivered by a member of the leadership team, rather than their normal teacher. We have planned this carefully, so that students are mostly in front of a subject specialist. Regretfully, we do not have sufficient staff to make this guarantee to Year 13 but we are hopeful that more teachers will be in attendance, for at least part of the day, than previously.

As there has been a relatively large amount of disruption this year, with the enhanced number of bank holidays also, on these two occasions, teaching staff that are not striking and are in attendance will deliver a virtual lesson via zoom for all students in Years 7 to 10. Students in Year 12 will be set independent work by their teachers (with the exception of classes that comprise Year 12 and Year 13 students, in this instance, Year 12 students may be asked to attend).

We appreciate that this is not ideal and that families may not have multiple access to computers etc, but we feel it is a sensible solution to ongoing disruption. As we no longer have a Zoom license across the College, lessons will be limited to 40 minute intervals, with independent work set for the final 20 minutes. The links to these lessons will be posted on Show My Homework by classroom teachers. Please note that where students are taught by teaching staff who are striking, they will not have virtual lessons. This cannot be signposted in advance, so it would regretfully need to be assumed by an absence of link.

Please find a short summary of this information.

• Year 11 attend as normal and receive all their lessons as normal.
• Year 13 attend as normal and receive lessons as normal as far as practicable.
• Year 12 remain at home (unless directly informed otherwise by teaching staff) and complete independent work set by their teachers and signposted on Show My Homework.
• Years 7 to 10 students remain at home and log in for virtual lessons throughout the day by clicking on the links in Show My Homework

Many thanks in advance for your support.

Kindest regards

Wendy Ainsworth
Principal