Welcome back to school!

We hope you are all finding the ‘new normal’ not too different to how things were before.  We have been incredibly impressed with how wonderfully pupils across the Trust have coped with new routines and expectations.  Having visited a number of schools in the first few weeks, I have seen first-hand how calm and organised things are and this has meant that children have been able to get back to learning alongside their friends, for some I am sure if feels like they haven’t been away!  Thank you to all our families and staff for their support in getting the children back to a more normal learning experience at school.

As you are probably aware there have been changes to government guidance over recent weeks, and it is likely that further guidance will be issued during the coming months.  For now, those of us that were based in the central office are either working from home or spending time in schools supporting staff there.  We are also aware that there may be local lockdowns in the future and as part of our future planning we have procedures in place to switch classes to the Google Classroom Platform within hours of any such announcement from government.  In the coming weeks we will be collecting new permissions for the Google platform, this is particularly important for new pupils of the Trust.  Pupils who were previously accessing the platform will continue to be able to do so. 

The Curriculum Enrichment programme has been designed as part of our Build Back Better policy, supporting schools to return to the new normal with an ambition to focus on building back even better.  Through this policy we aim to make sure that the school curriculum is not narrowed and that children continue to have a broad experience of learning throughout the school day.  We also aim to offer more high-quality enrichment opportunities to more families than ever before.  All members of the central education team are delighted to be able to spend more time in our schools and over the coming months we will also be facilitating some of the afterschool clubs (Curriculum Enrichment) between 3.30pm-4.30pm. 

As part of our Trust promise to 'Build Back Better', there is an ongoing focus on pupil wellbeing. We will be sending out a pupil survey once a term to all our Reception to Y6 pupils and Academy Heads and class teachers will use the results to support their classes.