15 July 2020

Dear Parent/Carer

A sincere thank you

As we approach the end of this academic year and the extraordinary situation, we have all been faced with over the last 5 months, I would again like to thank all parents and carers for your unstinting support and your kind words and good wishes. Your positive feedback has meant a great deal to us as we have grappled with actioning government guidance, sometimes at short notice and often, conflicting with previous advice. I am sure you, like all of us, are looking forward to a break from remote education and a chance to spend more time with family and friends during the summer break and as lockdown restrictions are eased. I am reminded, however, that many of you have been touched by Covid-19 in some way and are still dealing with the repercussions of the virus in terms of the health of members of your family and/or the financial implications of the impact of the lockdown. As I have said before Collingwood is more than just a school and we are here to help - please do contact our staff if we can assist you in any way.

September

We are currently finalising our plans to welcome all our students back in September. I am aware that some schools in Surrey are simply telling parents and students that they will be back in September, but the final details will not be released until late August. Given the complexity of how to implement government guidance I can certainly understand this approach, however, I thought you would appreciate a brief outline of what we are going to do to comply with government guidance whilst ensuring the safety of our students and staff remains paramount. These plans are outlined below. I will confirm the final arrangements for our return to College on or around the 24 August and I would ask that you check your e-mails and our website at that time.

Results day

We are arranging results day events on site for our Year 11 and 13 students in August. These events are being arranged within the current government guidance with small ‘bubbles’ of students coming on site at staggered times throughout results day to discuss their grades, pick up any documentation, see staff and receive any further advice and guidance that they need. Although not quite the traditional results day event that we normally have, we do hope that this will give our students an opportunity to celebrate in person their success with friends and their teachers. In the event of wet weather or a change in government advice we will have a remote results day contingency plan ready!

Induction days

Unfortunately, we have not been able to have our new Year 7 students into College to receive their normal induction days experience. We are therefore planning to invite them in, in small groups, on our INSET day on Tuesday 1 September for a short tour of the site, a meeting with key pastoral staff and their Form Tutor in their form rooms. Although this is not the normal experience, we do hope that time in the College when they are the only students on site and the events provided, will ensure they are fully prepared for the full return of all students the following day.

New Parental Communication Tool

We would like to take this opportunity to advise you that we will be replacing the Parent Portal in September with a new parent/student information and communication system called EduLink One. We will be using this system from September 2020 to provide you with essential information about your student(s) and their lives at Collingwood College.

EduLink One is an integrated school system which will allow us to consolidate several of our current systems and can be accessed using an iOS and Android App or via a website. The various functions will be released in phases starting with the purpose-built communication tool and home learning notifications. More details about these will be distributed at a later date.

For security, this new system requires an individual parent login username and password which will be sent to you during the Summer holidays. If you have more than one student at the school, you will only require one account and all students will be visible through this.

…and finally

I hope you are able to enjoy some quality and happy times with family and friends over the coming weeks.

I hope you have a great summer break!