Hitchin Girls' School Parent Portal - Y7 - 11 Weekly Newsletter

Industrial action 15 & 16 March

Please see below the letter sent to parents/carers earlier this week.

I am writing to confirm the arrangements for students on the third and fourth days of industrial action: Wednesday 15 March and Thursday 16 March 2023.

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 15 and 16 March.

As with the previous days 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 1400 students. However, due to differences in the school timetable on these two days, we have a different arrangement for each day. These arrangements are as follows:

On Wednesday 15 March, students in Years 7, 11, 12 and 13 should attend school as normal. 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.

On Thursday 16 March, students in Years 10, 12 and 13 should attend school as normal. There may be periods of the day when their normal teacher is not available and independent working will be expected (Year 10 will be supervised). Students should bring their laptops or other devices (Years 12 & 13) and Chromebooks (Year 10) to school, fully charged.

Students in Years 7, 8, 9 and 11 should stay at home and undertake remote learning, following their normal timetable.

For those students staying at home, 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. For Year 11s, the time when no teacher is available should be used for revision for GCSEs.

We will make provision available in school for students 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 in school. 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
Headteacher