I welcome you to the summer term of 2020 in strange circumstances. Most importantly, I hope you and all of your family are staying safe, healthy and that you are managing the new challenges of lock-down.
As you know, we launched the academic term on Tuesday, with a complete virtual school. Everything from the first whole school assembly and a complete suite of academic lessons, following a normal timetable structure, to activities, including CCF, origami, ukulele club and the Duke of Edinburgh’s Award, and a lovely assembly from the Chaplain, to wrap up with the thought for the week, is being delivered.
I want to take a moment to sincerely thank the Stover staff for enabling this to happen. In the space of 4 weeks, they have devised and delivered a complete school, in an environment that is new to most. They have pushed themselves way out of their comfort zone, absorbed training and new ideas and shown a determination to deliver from day one of the term. They have even organised a new curriculum for our Year 11 pupils, ensuring that they can begin their post 16 learning a term early. What a team! The goal from the first moment of closure was always to ensure our children were not going to miss out on learning and I could not have asked more from the staff in pursuing this aim with absolute conviction.
At the same time, our support staff have remained fully engaged, if, like many of us, working at distance at the moment. The Administration team are manning the switchboard and dealing with your queries and concerns, a slimmed-down House Keeping crew are keeping the building “return ready”, the Estates team continue to deliver the programme of update and maintenance that began in earnest 3 years ago and the Registrar’s team are even recruiting pupils, some of whom joined us for the summer term!
Throughout the period of lockdown, the school has provided a childcare facility for our Key Worker families and vulnerable children. Again here, credit to all of the staff who have enabled this facility. The catering staff, estates team and academic staff who have volunteered throughout the usual Easter break to supervise and support families whose parents are delivering essential work during this crisis, have my admiration and gratitude. We will continue to provide this service for the duration of the Covid-19 lock-down.
As a parent, I have been on the receiving end of the online curriculum since Tuesday. It was genuinely moving to see the pupils and staff really enjoy “seeing each other”, chatting, connecting and just enjoying each other’s company on Tuesday morning and then getting on with interactive lessons and real, focused learning.
At the same time, I would like to thank all of the parents and pupils who have sent me, the leadership team and the staff, letters of support and thanks for the on-going learning and support of their children that is being delivered in the virtual environment. They really do mean a lot, and I know that staff have benefited from the “shot in the arm” that this positive feedback has given them; I have made a point of sharing comments that have come to me directly with the relevant staff because it really does make a difference. In addition, with the isolation we are all experiencing, the positive messages about the online curriculum give us real and valuable feedback about the fact that it is working and that our children are genuinely benefiting and learning. As a staff, we had a plan, but honestly, were all holding our breath a little on Tuesday morning. Your feedback has allowed us to exhale a little. Thank you.
I would also like to recognise the efforts of the Friends of Stover School, who are adopting the school ambition of “continuing to run as normal” as far as is practicable in the current circumstance. They have already delivered a couple of localised events and tonight will run the whole school FoS quiz, as per the summer term calendar. You have been emailed with the details, so please join if you can to support the Friends and perhaps connect with some familiar faces.
In conjunction and dependent on how long enforced closure remains in place, we are already planning delivery of as many of the calendared school events as possible. The Marketing and Registrations team are thinking through the conundrum of a virtual Open Day and Mr Tizzard and his crew are planning online concerts and performances where music events are calendared. Though the Government have made small noises about a phased re-opening of schools, we will even deliver sports day and speech day in the virtual world if we need to, along with the virtual handshakes used in my opening assembly!
There was genuine disappointment (honestly!) for many of our Year 11 and 13 pupils, when we finally got concrete confirmation that the summer examinations would be cancelled. They had worked hard and were planning their revision programmes when the news landed. Of course, there was also concern about how the new assessment framework would reflect the efforts they had dedicated to their studies. I hope the disappointment has now ebbed away and the concerns have been massaged by Dr. Stone’s updates, passed on from the Department of Education as soon as we have received them. Though all is not one hundred percent clear yet, we have a much better idea of the material teachers will have to collect and submit to support fair, evidence predictors of performance. In the meantime, I would encourage our Year 11 and 13 pupils to engage fully with the alternative summer term curricula that the staff have provided. This learning will provide a bridge to post-16 autumn term learning and keep brains active and healthy.
Our Pastoral Team has initiated its support programme, contacting over 80 pupils and families across the school. We are updating our social media with information about keeping ourselves safe and healthy and there are some age-specific resources available through the school portal, which I would encourage you to look at. We are already planning how we can fully support our pupils in this area when we return to school. Our learning support staff and teaching assistants are continuing to support pupils, both inside lessons and as individual interventions. There are now virtual ‘learning support’ classroom spaces that pupils can pop into, much as they might at breaktime or lunchtime in the normal school day. We continue to be absolute in our duty to safeguard our pupils, even from distance, and we are actively monitoring the engagement that your child has with class registration and learning through the day. Thankfully, the technology allows the world to be a small place and enables us to provide support from afar, to include even our international boarders, who are engaged with our learning and pastoral provision. I am delighted to hear that this is working, even with the associated time delays. The Head of Sixth Form, tutors and the Year 12 recently had a live ‘check-in’ that included pupils from around the world, which is amazing. We all look forward hugely to the time when we are allowed back onto the site here at Stover. Please contact us, as many families already have, if Covid-19 is causing technology problems (we have helped a number of families by supplementing the technology they have available at home) or if it is creating serious financial difficulties; again, we will do our best to support through the intervening period. As mentioned above, our pastoral, health and emotional support are also in operation; if you need support in these areas, don’t hesitate to make contact and we will do all we can.
I will close as I started, by wishing you all the best and hoping you all stay safe and healthy; I look forward to seeing you all very soon. Kindest regards,
Mr Richard Notman Headmaster
Headmaster
