Posted on: 29/11/2022
Posted on: 17/12/2020
End of term message from David Hood, Headteacher
Dear Parents / Carers,
We’ve got to the end of term! Many thanks to you for your support through what has certainly been a challenging time since September. I hope you are able to stay well and enjoy a happy (if unusually quiet) fortnight over the Christmas and New Year period.
Overall we feel that the term has gone well. This is down to the great efforts of all of the staff and to the students who, for the most part, have gone along with everything we have asked of them, and really made the most of the opportunities that school has been able to provide. I would like to pay tribute to our Year 7 students. Their first term in secondary school has probably been very different from what they expected, but they have settled in remarkably well and certainly now feel like fully fledged members of the school community. Year 11 have shown impressive resilience. They are the year group that has been most affected by the need to isolate, but they have kept going with maturity and good humour.
Please note the following important points:
1) If any student who has been in school this week develops COVID symptoms on either Friday 18 December or Saturday 19 December and tests positive, please notify the school on office@cressex.org without delay. This is so that we can notify any other student or member of staff who may have been in contact with him/her.
2) There has been a lot in the news over the past 24 hours about both mass COVID testing in schools and a possible “staggered start” in January. I am afraid that Government announcements include suggested plans that are currently completely unworkable in the case of COVID testing and very vague in the case of the staggered start. I will write to you again when I know more. Please keep an eye on your emails and the school website.
3) We are sorry that we have not been able to send you reports this side of Christmas (for students in Years 7 to 10). We do have all the results for the Assessment Point 1 tests for those students, but we are needing to undertake a large exercise to make sure that our target grades are fair and properly reflect current circumstances. If we simply used our normal approach it is likely that very many students, no matter hard they were working, would show as making “below expected progress”, which would not be right. We aim to post the reports for students in Y7 to Y10 towards the end of the first week in January. There will be a second Assessment Point for students in Years 7 to 10 in the summer term. Reports will also be sent home after those exams.
Year 11 students have taken one round of mock exams and reports were sent home following those. There will be a second round of mock exams in January-February 2021. Further details, including the schedule, will be emailed directly to students and parents in due course. The next set of Year 11 reports will be sent out to parents following the conclusion of the second round of mocks.
And finally, to end on a wonderful positive note – well done to Year 10 Citizenship students who organised a collection of food and other important items for the One Can Trust charity. As ever, Cressex students are keen to think of others and to do something practical to help. We can be proud of them!
With all good wishes,
David Hood
Headteacher
