Charlton School

10^th June 2021

Dear Parent/Carer,

Welcome back to the final half-term, of what has been another challenging academic year, due to the Covid-19 pandemic and all the restrictions and interruptions this has placed on schools and education.

I would like to publicly thank and commend our Year 11 students who continued to work right up until their leaving day, with some even completing assessments on the Friday morning.  You should all be very proud of what you have achieved under the most challenging of circumstances.

Staff are now processing all the assessment results to create an overall grade, taking a holistic look at all the assessments we identified that would be used, to arrive at the most appropriate grade for every student, another huge undertaking for them.

Parent Governor Vacancy

I am delighted to share that we have a Parent Governor vacancy on our Governing Body.  We are blessed with a very well informed and proactive Governing Body and are interested to receive a note of interest via email to school@charlton.uk.com from any interested parents with students in Year 10 to Year 7, or from any prospective parents of Year 6 students starting school in September 2021.

On receiving the note of interest via email, the parent will be contacted by school to further discuss the role and level of commitment needed.  Our Governors are keen to receive notes of interest from all parents, including those who represent the diverse nature of our school community.  Please email your interest to school by Friday 18^th June.

Punctuality to school

With all students now entering the building at either 8.40am (Year 7 and 10) or 8.45am (Year 8 and 9), it is now more apparent that a small number of students are not being dropped off by parents or are arriving on site after these times.  Please reinforce with your child the need to be on the school site prior to the times above, to enable them to get to their form rooms on time.

From Monday, if your child has not made it to their form room on time parents will receive a text message stating that they are yet to arrive at school.  Persistent lateness will be monitored, and appropriate sanctions issued.  Please support us in ensuring your child is punctual to school.

No smoking on school site

Please can I remind parents that Charlton School is a no smoking site, this includes vapes or e-cigarettes. This rule extends to parents sitting in cars. With the warm weather, it has been noted that this is not being observed and I ask all parents not to smoke/vape at any time whilst on the school site.

Uniform

With non-essential retail fully open, Bakers and Sons are open and available to supply all our uniform, both online and through their shop, should any new items need to be purchased.  We are also able to supply, free of charge, a good range of high-quality second-hand uniform through our school reception.

Having returned from lock-down some time ago now, our full uniform and jewellery policy is being implemented.  There should not be any non-Charlton items of clothing in school, except for an outdoor coat, if necessary.  Further details of our expectations on uniform, jewellery and make up can be found at the following link.

http://charlton.uk.com/parent-student-information/uniform

Covid-19 Testing

You may have seen that the Government is keen for all staff and students to maintain the twice weekly testing using lateral flow tests and for you to record the results on the Government website (https://www.gov.uk/report-covid19-result).  It is vital that as many members of our school community do this to reduce the potential for further isolations this year.  To support this, we will be issuing students with another box of test kits tomorrow. 

I know we are all concerned about the National rise in Coronavirus cases, and the impact this may have on the final stage of the re-opening road map.  I want to reassure you that all our control measures are still in place in school.  We are supporting any students who wish to continue to wear face masks but ask these are provided by home.

Please can I remind you of the need to isolate immediately for 10 days, including all of your household, if a student or any family member displays symptoms of coronavirus, these being:

• high temperature – this means you feel hot to touch on your chest or back (you do not need to measure your temperature)
• new, continuous cough – this means coughing a lot for more than an hour, or 3 or more coughing episodes in 24 hours (if you usually have a cough, it may be worse than usual)
• loss or change to your sense of smell or taste – this means you have noticed you cannot smell or taste anything, or things smell or taste different to normal

You will need to book a test through the internet or by phoning 119.  You should not simply rely on the outcomes of a Lateral Flow test, you must get tested at a PCR test centre.

If you get a negative test result, this means you are at low risk of having COVID-19.  You and your family can stop isolating. If you get a positive test result, this means that when you took the test, you had COVID-19. You and other members of your household must continue to self-isolate.

We all need to follow the full guidance and rules at this time to ensure we do not face further restrictions in school or our wider community.

Yours faithfully,

Mr A McNaughton

Principal