Today, for the first time in my career, I had to send an entire Class home as a parent informed me that they had received the result for a COVID-19 test done yesterday, and it was positive. In order to protect the students of Class 7, the teachers of Class 7 and the parents and grandparents of Class 7 I immediately put into place a HUGE operation of sending home all Class 7 students.
This caused huge disruption to numerous families and I never want to be put in that position again.
I have just heard that the Class 7 student has tested positive. Therefore, I am going to put into place two important changes.
Change 1 : With the in-school, in-person exams just days away I am going to move to online school for all Senior Classes (6 to 12) for the next two days, Thursday 27MAY2021 and Friday 28MAY2021. This is for the well-being of all the students at school, the teachers, the parents and the grandparents. Note that Classes 11 and 12 are on study leave, so they will NOT have online classes for those two days but continue as they have all week.
Change 2 : I am going to postpone ALL exams for Classes 6, 7 and 8 in line with the postponement that I put in place yesterday for Classes 10, 11 and 12. This is to enable Class 7 students to quarantine for at least 10 days (as per UK recommendations). Thus Classes 6, 7 and 8 (along with 9, 10, 11 and 12) will have a whole week of extra study leave (no Senior classes next week for any classes apart from Small Group and GCSE A Level) before we start exams all together on Monday 07JUN2021. A new timetable will be posted in due course.
Note 1 : NONE of these issues will affect small group classes 6D, 8D, 9D, 10D and 11D who will continue to come physically to school if they want to.
Note 2 : NONE of these issues will affect the GCSE and A Level classes (10A, 11A and 12A) who will continue to attend school and sit for their exams as per their present timetable.
Note 3 : NONE of these issues will affect either the Junior or Infant Department. Physical presence is non-mandatory in the Junior and Infant Department should you wish to move your children back online, just keep them at home.