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Yr10 Phased Return to School

Please see below the latest email that has been sent to Yr10 parents and carers...

Dear parents, carers and Year 10 students,

I hope this email finds you all in good health.

Last week I wrote to parents explaining that we would soon be publishing our plans to reintroduce Year 10; I am pleased to be able to share these plans with you today.

Throughout this period of school closures I have taken the view that everyone's safety and wellbeing has to come first. When schools were first asked to return on June 1st I felt this was far too early. We had not been provided with any scientific evidence to suggest it would be safe and no guidance for how schools could achieve this had been published. 

Since then, the government moved the date for secondary schools back to June 15th for Year 10 students to begin receiving some form of 'face-to-face' teaching. We have spent time modelling a number of different scenarios that would allow us to achieve a partial phased return for Year 10 students and we have now reached a decision that this can safely take place at UCC from Monday June 22nd.

Attached is a document that contains the detail of this plan. I have also produced a narrated video version of this presentation that you can watch by clicking this link

Essentially, the headlines are:

  • Year 10 will begin a phased return to school from June 22nd
  • 25% of the cohort (45 students) can attend on any one day
  • We will create 4 groups of 45 students (A, B, C, D). Each group will attend one day per week during the final four weeks of term.
  • Students will be taught English, Maths or Science during these 'face-to-face' days.
  • The timings of the day are 10am-2pm.
  • Attendance is optional, not compulsory. However, we hope to see as many Year 10s as possible.
  • All subjects will continue to set work online via Show My Homework - these face-to-face sessions are additional to the remote learning programme. We have asked teachers to be mindful of this in terms of the volume of work they set and the deadlines for work need to be flexible. 

Please could all Year 10 parents fill out this form to indicate whether or not you will require a place for your child. The deadline is Monday 15th June at 9am. We will email you on Tuesday 16th June with the details of which group and therefore which days your child has been allocated. 

We believe this return to school will have significant benefits for students. They will receive teaching from English, Maths and Science teachers that will supplement the remote learning which continues via Show My Homework. We also feel that students will benefit psychologically from re-entering the school environment following such a long period of time away. We will have plenty of staff on site to support students if they want to talk to us about concerns or worries they might have.

I would like to thank you all for your support through such a challenging period for us all. However, we are very excited about taking this positive first step towards returning to school. 

I hope to see you all soon.

Yours faithfully,
Mr Solly.