News for Parents

January News

January 2008

Dear Parent

I would like to wish you all a very Happy New Year and hope that you and your family had a good break over the festive period.

Your daughter may have mentioned to you that Miss Jones (Head of PE and Y9) is temporarily off school as she is caring for her partner who is currently very ill. It is likely that she will be off until at least February Half Term and while the PE Department will endeavour to run the full extra-curricular programme, there will inevitably be some clubs which might need to be cancelled. During Miss Jones’ absence her lessons are being covered by the PE staff and by Miss Brown. Mrs Bennett (Head of Pastoral Care) is looking after the needs of the Y9 girls. Mrs Parnell (Head of ICT) is also not in school at the moment following an operation during the holidays. We expect her to be back with us in 2 weeks, meanwhile her lessons are being covered by Mrs Beattie and Mrs Downes.

At the moment we are fortunate that the girls seems to have returned to school in good health and we are anxious not to have an outbreak of the winter vomiting bug which I’m sure you will be aware has hit the UK over the holidays. Please would you remind your daughter about the importance of regular hand washing with hot water and soap, particularly at break and lunchtimes. If your daughter does contract the virus, please would you ensure that she stays away from school for 48 hours after the vomiting and diarrhoea has stopped.

During last term I received several comments from parents of girls in Y7 – 9 about the excessive amount of homework their daughters seemed to be doing. We are currently monitoring very carefully the amount of homework set and ask if you would check from your daughter’s homework timetable (in the back of her planner) that she is not spending longer than the allocated time on homework. If you do find that a piece of homework is taking longer than it should, please would you write a note to this effect in her planner or in her exercise book so that we can follow this up in school.

As you will be aware, we are working towards our next school Inspection by ISI which will take place from 4 – 8 February. School will end for all Senior girls at 3.00 pm on Friday 8 February to allow time to give feedback to all the staff on the outcomes of the Inspection. School buses will run at the normal time so girls using the buses will be able to wait in school until 3.30 pm. Parents will receive feedback on the Inspection when the report is finalised by ISI which is likely to be after the Easter Holiday.

I look forward to meeting you at our events scheduled for this Half Term:

Y9 GCSE Options Evening: Monday 21 January
Oxbridge Information Evening (Y11 & Y12): Wednesday 23 January
Careers Fair (Y9 upwards): Wednesday 6 February

With best wishes

MRS V A DUNSFORD
HEADMISTRESS