Dear Parent/Carers
Re: COVID 19
In line with the latest Government advice, Ridgeway Secondary School continues to remain open unless there is a medical reason for students not to attend school. We continue to encourage all of our community to take sensible precautions to reduce the spread of the virus – please see the weblink below.
https://www.gov.uk/government/topical-events/coronavirus-covid-19-uk-government-response
The Government are discussing contingency plans to delay the spread of the virus which may include the temporary closure of schools. In this case, we will fully brief you and implement working from home measures for all students. The school day will continue as normal with students working using IT facilities through our newly designed ‘online curriculum’ students will be trained on this in the coming days.
Trips and Enrichment
Please see below for details regarding current status:
| Trip or Event | Status |
| Geography field work trip | Cancelled |
| Ski Trip Austria 2020 | Cancelled |
| PGL Netball and Football Residential | Postponed – dates to be confirmed |
| All Extra-Curricular Sport | Cancelled |
| All Extra-Curricular Clubs | Cancelled |
| Parents Evenings – Up until 28/4/20 | Cancelled |
Any further events will be communicated to you on a day to day basis.
Summer Examinations
We are planning our teaching for the examinations occurring as normal in the summer however we are mindful that they might be impacted. Ofqual have issued the following statement:
“We recognise that students, parents, schools and colleges will be concerned about the possible impact of coronavirus on the 2020 summer exam series. Our advice at this time is to continue to prepare for exams and other assessments as normal.
We continue to work closely with exam boards, other regulators and the Department for Education and we have met to plan for a range of scenarios, as the public would expect. Our overriding priorities are fairness to students this summer and keeping disruption to a minimum.
It is still many weeks until exams start and we will issue updated advice if necessary, giving schools and colleges as much notice as possible.”
Online Curriculum
With the curriculum needing to continue if a closure happens, Ridgeway have created an online curriculum through Microsoft SharePoint. The website will consist of a home page and a series of folders separated into year groups and subjects where students can continue to access their learning online. Staff will be able to support students via Microsoft Teams, this will be done between 9-10am and 1-2pm. Students can contact teachers through teams at any point and expect a response within the hours above.
Work will be expected to be stored on Microsoft Word through Office 365 in the shared folder that the subject teacher will create. Each child will have one Microsoft Word document per subject which will act as an exercise book. This will be regularly reviewed by the subject teacher. Student work will be set on Microsoft Teams. Each student will need to lay their work out with a ‘Learning Objective’ and Date underlined at the top of their work just like in their books and this will direct the teacher to the appropriate content for any feedback.
Although we are training our students we do anticipate some teething problems with access so please refer to the following links for easy step by step guides:
https://help.lourdesit.org.uk/support/solutions/articles/33000218709-how-to-access-a-shared-file
https://help.lourdesit.org.uk/support/solutions/articles/33000225631-accessing-emails-on-office-365
We will keep you updated about this.
Special Educational Needs:
For those students that receive adult support in school, teaching assistants will be creating a team around the child via Microsoft Teams to ensure any support needed is available. Immersive reader is used for many of our students who either struggle with reading or have dyslexia. Please see the link below for how to use this.
https://help.lourdesit.org.uk/support/solutions/articles/33000231654-immersive-reader-guide-to-use-
Pastoral Support:
Our pastoral support team will be working alongside specific students in the coming days to ensure they have a created team through Microsoft Teams so students can continue to access the pastoral support the require in school at home. If there are any requests for this please email cgibbs@ridgewaysecondary.org.uk.
Guidance to parents or families with symptoms:
Please see government link below.
Regular updates about the current situation are available on our website and social media platforms.
Yours faithfully,
Mr M Bennett
Head Teacher