12 February 2021 NEW LINE LEARNING NEWSLETTER Believe and Achieve MESSAGE FROM THE HEADTEACHER Dear Parents/ Carers, As we come to the end of a quite extraordinary Term for many of us I am writing to once again try to clarify the current situation at the school given the rapidly changing circumstances that we have found ourselves in. It is now becoming even more obvious that the pandemic is now having a huge impact on many who work and are connected to the school particularly in regard to rising infection rates again locally. I would like to reiterate that the commitment of our staff to the children and our school remains undiminished but we are constantly having to adapt to almost daily announcements, New Line Learning Newsletter 1 12 February 2021 guidance changes and directives from Government. It was always going to be the case that the ever changing pandemic would require some changes of direction but currently the school staff and pupils are facing ever more uncertainty. My message to all in our community is that we will as a school continue to support all pupils through these times and attempt to ensure that all have the opportunities that they deserve to be educated, supported and guided in the coming weeks. I do not have any influence over national announcements or policy but will make decisions that I feel are right and proper for those in our care. As I have stated many times this does not always meet the expectations of all but in such chaotic times we must forge forward and try and provide a clear direction where we can. REMOTE LEARNING I would like to thank you for your continued support of our staff and your kind comments about our remote teaching that is being provided. Staff are working exceptionally hard and as you can imagine this has taken time, much training and a huge effort to keep developing and set up. Just a reminder, if a staff member is absent work will be uploaded to TEAMS for pupils to access in their absence as it will be impossible to cover lessons. EXAMINATIONS AND TESTS I am not sure quite what to say to either pupils, parents or staff in regard to announcements by the Government over National tests and Examinations. Once again there remains very little clarity over the process from now on and we have been left New Line Learning Newsletter 2 12 February 2021 trying to reassure and advise on the current round of BTEC examinations. However, I will try and outline what I can about the facts and the school position: SECONDARY SUMMER EXAMS – The Government have not yet released to us the process of replacing exams this year and will be consulting over the next two weeks. I would urge all pupils to keep working hard as they did last year to ensure that we have evidence to prove grades if needed to do so. We will not just hand pupils grades if they have not worked hard for them! BTEC JANUARY ASSESSMENTS - At present the Government have left it up to schools to decide whether these examinations take place or not and in our view this is not ideal given that we are in a pandemic and in lockdown. We are therefore willing to accommodate those that are desperate to sit them and those that do not wish to come into school and not sit them. I am aware that this is a difficult decision for all of you and one which only you can decide at this time in discussions at home. Whatever you decide to do we will support you and I am extremely frustrated by the apparent lack of leadership at national level over this. We are unclear over the way forward at present but have safety measures in place if you wish to go ahead. It is unusual for me not to make a clear decision but I am aware that at present at least half the pupils are coming in because they wish to sit them and it is not our place as a school to deter you from doing so if pupils have prepared fully. We will continue in this light until we have further clarity and I can only apologise for the Government`s lack of direction! It remains your decision. ATTITUDE TO LEARNING: It would be very easy for pupils at both schools to simply stop working, particularly with the changes to exams and National tests. However, everyone needs to realise that we New Line Learning Newsletter 3 12 February 2021 need to base grades and evidence on what is happening now and the assessments when pupils return. Please support us with ensuring that all pupils are accessing lessons and working hard in all areas of their learning. We will need evidence to back up any grades that we predict for the children in the summer. The vast majority are working really hard and we are very proud of them. COVID TESTING: Staff are now being tested weekly using the Rapid Flow System and we have a dedicated team set up for this. This is a massive achievement to have even reached this point and I would like to thank those staff who have supported me over Christmas and this week to set it up. FINAL THOUGHT FOR THE TERM: Over the last few months we have probably learnt many things about ourselves, realised that we have resilience that we didn`t know we had, come to terms with the fact that many things are out of our control and realised that by working together we can achieve great things. This week the staff have continued to make their Headteacher an extremely proud person, they have adapted again to change, they have welcomed the inconvenience of a new Covid testing system and they have patiently waited and then trusted me to make some very difficult decisions. I am sure that the new lockdown announcement has created much anxiety amongst parents in regard to teaching at home and supporting the learning of your children. We will continue to support you, provide the best opportunities we can and we will stay connected with you in a variety of ways. Your messages of encouragement continue to provide us with hope, with the desire to do better and most importantly have picked many staff up when they have felt low. There are many staff who themselves are dealing with loss, illness and difficult situations at home but continue to work daily for the best interests of our children. I New Line Learning Newsletter 4 12 February 2021 have seen much pain, strife and worry across our community in the last nine months caused by just one virus, but what will come through in the end is the willingness of our community to care for each other and show compassion for each other. All I can promise is that our school will continue to provide hope, practice compassion, develop stronger friendships in this virtual world, forgive each other when we make the wrong call and most importantly act with wisdom in ever changing circumstances. The only option is forward………………………………………………and we will lead in the best way we can. Warmest regards Paul Murphy New Line Learning Newsletter 5 12 February 2021 MATHS DEPARTMENT NEWS This term in Maths we have been studying a range of topics remotely. Year 7 have enjoyed looking at solving problems with the four main operations as well as starting to explore fractions and percentages of amounts, useful when it comes to shopping the sales! Year 8s got stuck into my favourite topic Algebra, starting to look at sequences, indices and brackets. Meanwhile year 9 focused on money problems, working with pay slips and tax rates and adding VAT to purchase, all very important areas with plenty of links to the real world. Year 10 took on the difficult topic of circles and vectors – learning how to calculate the area of a circle and then using that to calculate volume and surface area of cylinders and other difficult prisms! We continue to teach remotely and pupils are engaging really well in a variety of online resources that we use such as: www.drfrostmaths.com www.mymaths.co.uk www.ttrockstars.com Every pupil at the academy has an account to the above sites and they can be used independently to improve topics that might need work– if you need help with passwords and log ins etc then please contact the academy directly. New Line Learning Newsletter 6 12 February 2021 New Line Learning School of Excellence… #SaveTheArts While learning remotely, SoE team were still committed to keep pushing forward in improving the pupils’ skills, as well as providing them with a much-needed break form virtual lesson. We decided to support the ‘save the arts’ movement, creating much needed awareness of the importance of the arts, and the worry of how the arts will be affected by the pandemic. Each week pupils had a short 30-minute session with an exciting independent task to complete. These included: a lip sync battle, a spoken word challenge, a musical dance number, as well as a production task. The work that the pupils have produced has been a real credit to them and the arts, really proving the importance behind the ‘save the arts’ movement. Hopefully they also had a lot of fun in the process! A video showcasing the amazing work pupils have done will be available soon. Hamilton Workshop New Line Learning Newsletter 7 12 February 2021 Pupils in the NLL School of Excellence had a wonderful opportunity to work with star of West End’s ‘Hamilton’, Ellena Vincent.