Dear student 

Happy New Year! I hope that you have all had a lovely break and that you and your loved ones are all well.  

I am sure that you are all aware from tonight’s government announcement that there will be a full national lockdown for the remainder of January, until February half term. We hoped this wouldn’t need to happen, but it has and we will get through this together as a college community. This significant development also has a knock-on effect in terms of this summer’s examinations/assessments which will not now happen as planned, although we unaware as yet as to what exactly will happen. We will keep you posted on any further developments as we are informed of these, but for now, I can inform you of the following: 

 

Criminology controlled assessments - January 2021 

Controlled assessments will NOT take place this week. The controlled assessments planned for this half term (which would be beginning tomorrow 5th January) have been postponed until a more appropriate time later in the academic year, most likely late spring/early summer. We will let you know of the new dates once we are settled securely back in college.  

 

BTEC and CACHE examinations – January & February 2021 

The government has announced that these examinations are taking place as planned. Please ensure that you have all the information required from our Examinations Department and that you attend at the specified date/time.  

 

Lessons this week 

All lessons this week (now including Criminology) will take place online, via Teams, as we had planned. Please follow your normal timetable. In order to allow for short breaks in screen time, lessons will run for 55-60 minutes. Please observe the online etiquette/rules you have been made aware of at the start of the year; lessons will be a little different as all staff and students will be joining lessons from home, but you have adapted well to change throughout this year and I am sure that this will be no different.  

Group tutorials will not take place this week; senior tutors will continue work with individual students and they are available to be contacted via email if you need any help/advice/information. If your senior tutor needs to contact you, this will be from their personal phone and will come up on your phone as ‘no caller ID’. Please answer if you receive a call of this nature – it is possible that someone from college is trying to get hold of you.  

I think that is all the information we can give you for now, but this is a fast-moving situation and we will be digesting all the information we will receive over the coming days/week and inform you of any changes and what our plans are going forward. Thank you for your patience. Take care and stay safe. 
 

Lisa Richards

Deputy Principal