5 October 2022

Staff Absence

We are experiencing an unusually high amount of staff absence at the moment.  Some of this is caused by short term sickness and some by medium term absence due to staff convalescing following medical procedures.  Such absence at the start of the academic year is obviously not ideal, however we are doing everything we can to minimise the impact on student learning by using specialist supply staff (when they can be found!), rotating staff into groups where there is a longer-term absence to ensure some specialist teaching is provided for them and use of our cover supervisor team to give some continuity for students.  I am also extremely fortunate that many staff have agreed to teach additional classes over and above their timetabled allocation.

I just wanted you to know why your sons or daughters are having more cover lessons than normal and that we are doing everything we can to deal with this.  I trust that this is a short-term issue which will improve in the coming weeks.

Academic Review Event

My thanks to all parents who attended the recent Academic Review event and I hope you found the discussion with Form Tutors/Mentors useful.  I was very pleased to receive a number of comments from parents stating how much they liked the hybrid approach to the format of the event, which allowed a choice between face-to-face or remote meetings.  We intend to repeat this for future Academic Review events although Parents’ Evenings this year will be conducted completely remotely, through the School Cloud system, following on from very positive feedback last year.

Celebration of Student Achievement

My thanks to all parents and carers who attended this event to see their sons or daughters receive their awards for their outstanding achievements in a range of subjects.  We were pleased that after having to postpone this event twice that we were finally able to acknowledge the outstanding work of our students.

Feeling Good Week - w/c Monday 10 October

Our Feeling Good Week will provide an opportunity for Collingwood to raise the profile of well-being and health across the College.  The foci of the week will be on inclusivity, healthy eating, healthy lifestyles and finally the support that can be provided for mental health.

During the week there will be a number of activities for parents and students, focussed on this theme, with the aim to promote positive well-being and healthy lifestyles for all.  Please see the item and flyer on the events in this newsletter.

College Closed

A reminder that College has an early finish at 12.20pm tomorrow and is closed on Friday.

Mr Tanner - Principal