Headteacher’s Update – July 10th 2020

This week we have made excellent progress with our planning and preparation for the full reopening of Patcham High School in September. Now we have been issued with full guidance from the government we are starting to develop some real clarity on what the school might look like at that start of the new academic year.

The first thing that we have had to do is work out how we can best keep students in year group social bubbles. After much thought we have decided to allocate each year group to a different part of the school. This means that students will have little or no contact with students from outside of their year group. Students will only use the classrooms in their part of the school and when the lesson ends it will be the teacher who moves classroom rather than the students. We want to avoid congestion in corridors and students mingling with other year groups during lesson changeover. This arrangement allows us in the main to stick to the broad and balanced curriculum that we have always offer at Patcham High.

We have also had to look at how we schedule the school day. We can’t have everyone spending Break together and we can’t have long queues for the canteen at Lunch. We don’t want students coming into school via the same entrance and we don’t want students leaving site simultaneously via the front gate at the end of the day.

So, this is what are school day is likely to look like in September …

Sitting alongside the new school day will be a set of new protocols. The school is well versed in the systems of control that ensure we do all that we can to prevent Covid infection. These systems have been implemented throughout lockdown so that students and staff who have been coming into school are safe. What we are doing now is upscaling these systems of control so that the whole school will be Covid secure in September. There is a great deal to organise and much to put in place but we are making big strides. All will be in place and we will be ready to welcome everyone back at the end of the summer.

I am aiming to write to you next week with details about the start of next term and to provide you with some guidance as to what will be expected of students as we retrun to ‘the new normal’ at the start of the 2020-21 academic year.

Please can I remind you that you can make an appointment to meet with me on Zoom at one of the ‘Virtual drop-in sessions’ (Monday, Wednesday and Friday 9:00-9:30am) by emailing EHolmes@patchamhigh.org.uk

Thank you for your continued support.

Please take care!

John McKee