Thank you for your support and understanding this morning when we had to take the difficult decision to close the school for Year 8 and 9 Students. Like other local schools who have recently had to take similar action, please be assured that this decision was not taken lightly and is always a last resort for us.

The level of staff COVID-related absence this morning means that we are not able to operate the school day in a safe and meaningful way. When making these sorts of decisions we have to take into account not only having enough adults to cover the lessons for staff unable to come to school but also the safe supervision of students while moving around the school and also during break and lunchtimes. We also have to consider how effectively we could manage emergency situations such as fire evacuations, etc. should the need arise.

Remote learning for Year 8 and 9 students will be in place until Thursday 2 December. We will continue to  monitor the situation and confirm return dates with you as soon as we are able to.

How Lessons will Work:

Students need to access work linked to the current school curriculum via their google classrooms, the same  way they accessed learning during the previous lockdown. Work will be set by the classroom teacher for  each timetabled lesson and should be accessed at the time they would normally attend that subject in  school. Teachers will be ‘live’ (via the google meets link in the classroom) to talk through the learning of  the lesson and answer any questions for the first 15 minutes and aim to include live or interactive content  to support the learning. Throughout the lesson time, the students will be able to contact the teacher via  email to ask any further questions they might have. Students would have been automatically enrolled to  their google classroom last half term. These start with 'WEL' in front of their class code, e.g. 'WEL-8yEN1'  for year 8, Y side, set 1 English. This will be on their google classroom page. If your child is having difficulties  accessing their google classrooms, please email google@wellingschool-tkat.org for support. Please click  the link below for help with logging into Google classroom:

https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1ZlZK119mert9bszX8tnwlbN3-ZMUgR0ZYru92iayfzo/edit

Computer and Internet Support:

Most students who needed to borrow a computer from us during the last period of remote learning, still  have their Chromebook. If your child returned it to us or if you have joined the Welling School community  since then and need to discuss how we can support you, or if you need technical support with Google Classroom, please email: google@wellingschool-tkat.org

Students Eligible for Free School Meals:

All families who are usually in receipt of free school meals will receive a voucher through the post which  will cover three day of lunch funds. The practicality of this means it is likely to arrive by post on Wednesday.  If you would like to discuss how we can support you until then please get in touch with us.

Again - thank you for your understanding and support. We will be back in touch by Wednesday to confirm arrangements for the rest of the week. Please do not hesitate to get in touch with us if there is anything else we can do to support you or your child while they are working at home.

Yours faithfully

Ms J Sangster

DEPUTY HEADTEACHER