Industrial action 1 March
Please find below the letter from Mr Crowther that was sent to parents/carers this week:
I am writing to confirm the arrangements for students on the second day of industrial action, Wednesday, 1 March 2023. The arrangements for the subsequent days of planned action (15 March and 16 March) will be published in advance of those dates.
The strike is about the level of funding schools receive and terms and conditions. The argument is not with our school but we will be affected by the strike. A significant number of our teaching staff are members of the NEU and, since members are not required to notify the school in advance of their intentions, I have had to conduct a risk assessment on the safety of the school being open to all our students when it is unclear how many teaching staff will be in school on 1 March.
As with the previous day of industrial action, through discussions within our senior team, we have determined that we may not have sufficient staff available to safely manage our full roll of nearly 1,400 students.
However, due to differences in the school timetable on this day, we will be able to have an additional year group in school this time. Students in Years 7, 11, 12 and 13 should attend school as normal on Wednesday, 1 March. There may be periods of the day when their normal teacher is not available and independent working will be expected (Years 7 and 11 will be supervised). Students should bring their laptops or other devices (Years 12 & 13) and Chromebooks (Years 7 & 11) to school, fully charged.
Students in Years 8, 9 and 10 should stay at home and undertake remote learning, following their normal timetable. Work will be set on Google Classroom by teachers who are not on strike with ‘live lessons’ via Google Meet being utilised, as appropriate. All students will be required to log onto their Google Classroom for each timetabled lesson. If, after 10 minutes, no work has been set or the teacher is not available, then students are required to undertake independent learning for that subject. Should this be the case, students are advised to review prior learning and make use of websites such as Educake, MyMaths, Dr Frost, BBC Bitesize, Seneca and Youtube to support their work.
We will make provision available in school for students in Years 8 - 10 with SEND or vulnerable children. There will be supervision by our Learning Support team and students will undertake the same remote learning as their peers, but supported by the Learning Support assistants. We will have limited capacity and, in some cases, we will approach families directly to suggest attendance, or you may request a place by emailing admin@hgs.herts.sch.uk
Children entitled to Free School Meals who are in school will be able to have lunch as usual from the school canteen. For those who are at home, we will be making arrangements for a packed lunch to be available and we will write to the families in question directly with more details.
I know that making alternative arrangements for your children will be difficult for some parents. That is why we are giving as much notice as possible and running as many classes as we safely can. I would like to take this opportunity to thank you in advance for your support at this time.
Yours sincerely,
James Crowther