Charlton School

28.05.21 LCT Update

Dear Parents and Carers,

I do hope you are well, and it is great to finally see the sunshine! It has been a busy half-term but has been the most normal few weeks we have had for a long time. Our schools are fully open, we have had great attendance and the staff have been able to focus on teaching and caring for our children. The great news is that, since Easter, we have had very few cases of COVID-19 and therefore children and students have had significantly less disruption to their education and been able to come to school every day.

We know it has been a very difficult time for many of our families and we are doing our very best to support you when you are facing real challenges. Our Pastoral teams and the LCT Welfare and Attendance team have been really proactive, supporting children who have struggled to get back into the routine of school. We constantly discuss what more we can do to help or source help and we will continue to do this over next half-term and beyond. Please remember to access our Community Fridge at Wrekin View and the LCT Food HUB at HLC – we are getting lots of donations!

All our schools are running “catch up” and intervention programmes so we quickly address gaps and support our children with their learning. These programmes will continue into next year and we are expecting announcements from the Government regarding additional funding to support this work, so it is sustained and embedded.

One of the important measures for us is that our schools are popular with parents and we now know, for September, that we are full in all our reception classes in HLC Primary, Wrekin View Primary and Crudgington Primary. Our Y7 applications have been incredible and HLC Secondary, Charlton and Ercall Wood Academy are also full for September. This gives a clear indication that parents are happy and want to send their children to our schools. Queensway and Severndale are always full, and we struggle to meet demand for places.

As we approach half-term it is so important that if you have a secondary age child that you maintain the twice weekly lateral flow testing as this is really working to help keep children in school. The vast majority of our staff have now had at least one vaccine, and many have had two which really supports the control and spread of the virus. We are really fortunate that levels of infection remain low in Telford and Shropshire.
We will soon be saying goodbye to all our Y11 students who have worked so hard to complete assessments and tests to provide the evidence we need to submit their grades to exam boards after half-term. There has been a lot of pressure on them, in a very short space of time, to do this work and staff have had masses of marking and grading to do, they want to ensure they do the very best for the students. This has not been an easy process for anyone and the workload on schools has been unbelievable.

I send my best wishes to you and your family, enjoy some freedom over half-term but stay safe and well.
Kind Regards,
Dr. Gill Eatough, CEO, LCT