Reading Girls’ School Principal: Jon Gargan

31st March 2021

Dear Parent/Carer

Further to my letter of 3rd March 2021 and our subsequent welcome evening on 11th March, I am writing to update you on the next steps.

Firstly, I hope you were able to watch the virtual welcome evening presentation. If you were not able to watch it live, we have uploaded the recording to our website. Welcome Video

School bus service… Since then, the hot topic has been the bus service. Nearly 50% of our girls live outside of the school postcode and would ordinarily need to take a two-bus journey to school. It was very important to us that we made every effort to ease parents’ worries about the long travel to and from school at such a young age.

To that end, we introduced our first school bus service in September 2018 and within two years we are operating four routes because of the growth of the school. At the time of writing, that includes two school minibuses, an external contract for a 35-seater bus and a further contract for a double-decker bus with Reading Buses route. Girls arrive safely each day for between 8.00am – 8.15am and join our free breakfast club before the school day begins.

Significantly, each year we amend our routes based on the needs of the incoming Year 7 girls. Our current routes are outlined below.

(i) Reading North –

• covering upper • Henley Road • Lower Caversham

______Northumberland Avenue, Reading, RG2 7PY Email: [email protected] Telephone: 0118 9861336 www.readinggirlsschool.co.uk

(ii) Reading North-East

• Lower Caversham • Cemetery Junction • University area

(iii) Reading West

• covering • Bath Road • Southcote • Coley • Berkeley Avenue

(iv) Reading Buses Central [No 91] • from Tilehurst along the Oxford Road • IDR • London Street • Whitley Street • Northumberland Avenue • Canterbury Road

If you live at a distance from the school and feel your daughter would benefit from using the school bus service and you haven’t already told us, please email [email protected] with your home address information so we can add your details to our map to allow us to start planning the routes for September. We will then confirm routes by May half term.

Year 6 explorer weeks… Our explorer weeks during the months of June and July are fundamental elements of the transition process. After the Easter holidays we will write to primary schools asking them to select a suitable week in which they will allow our new entrants to join us for four full days. We purposefully keep numbers low to ensure a more meaningful week for the girls. In particular, we try to encourage schools from which we have one pupil joining us in September, to select the same week so that those girls have something in common. We will write to you to when we know which week your daughter’s school will be joining us.

Parents’ evening… We look forward to seeing parents in person at our Induction evening on Thursday 8th July when we finalise the smaller details ahead of September.

Don’t forget to come and see us… Since national offer day, there has been a steady stream of parents and their daughters visiting us for a pupil led tour of the school. If you haven’t visited us yet and would like to do so, please email [email protected] to arrange a date. We normally have an open-door policy but due to Covid- 19 restrictions we are kindly asking that you make an appointment at the moment.

In the meantime… We will continue to circulate our weekly newsletter to you so that you know what is going on at your new school.

I wish you and your family an enjoyable Easter holiday period.

Yours sincerely

Jon Gargan Principal