16 December 2020
Year 11 Parents Evening
We will be holding a Year 11 Parents Evening on Monday 11th January between 3.30pm and 6.00pm.
Parents’ Evenings are very important and we have thought very carefully about how best to share information with students, parents and carers given the current national context. The ongoing pandemic clearly makes it impossible to stage a physical parents’ evening, therefore we will host a virtual evening, with our teachers talking to you about your child's progress via video link. Year 11 reports will be issued in the week beginning 4th January and this will provide an opportunity to discuss progress, the recent mock examinations and most crucially next steps.
We will use software provided by a service called SchoolCloud for the Virtual Parents’ Evening. The software has a good track record; we held a very successful Year 13 parents’ evening with it at the start of this month. We will send out information on how to access the system for your child no later than Tuesday 5th January. The system is intuitive and easy to use.
Booking for appointments will open on Wednesday 6th January at 10.00am and remain open until Friday 8th January at 3.00pm. Appointments can be made and then accessed from any internet enabled device, such as a computer, tablet or smartphone.
We are very keen to offer feedback on how students can progress and improve. The focus of our conversations will be on areas identified in the aforementioned Year 11 mock examinations. We will discuss potential concerns in terms of classroom work, subject specific areas of strength and areas for development and key areas of focus for the remainder of the academic year.
Our staff will not be able to talk about predicted grade certainty, what a likely Centre Assessed Grade would be (used last year to determine GCSE grades) or if exams will or won’t take place. At the time of writing, the only clear guidance we have is that final examinations will take place in the summer of 2021 and we are working very diligently to prepare students based upon that timeframe. As parents and carers you will want the best for your child; we want that too. Therefore, discussing their current performance and next steps in the time available is a much better use of the appointments than speculating about what the Department for Education might choose to do in the coming weeks. I hope you understand our reason for making this decision. If you have any general questions about examinations please contact the school and we will happily to arrange a separate meeting.
This is the second time we have used this system and the feedback for other parents has been very positive. Like all new initiatives, there will be things that we need to modify and your thoughts will be helpful as we plan future parents’ evening.
Please monitor your emails closely in January for log in details, we will also provide a simple guide that will help you to understand and use the system with confidence. Thank you for your ongoing support.
Mr O’Sullivan