26 November 2020
Year 13 Parents' Evening
We will be holding a Year 13 Parents' Evening on Monday 7th December 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 13 reports will be issued on Tuesday 1st December and this will provide an opportunity to discuss progress, mock examinations and next steps.
We will use software provided by a service called SchoolCloud for the Virtual Parents’ Evening. Other schools have successfully used the software and it has a good track record. Next week, we will email out an individual log in code that, along with your child’s date of birth, will allow you to select and access appointments. Each appointment will be 5 minutes in length and can be 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 13 reports. 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 A Level 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 first time the school has trialled such a system and we would very much welcome your feedback after the event. Like all new initiatives, there will be things that we need to modify and your thoughts will be helpful as we plan the next parents’ evening.
Please monitor your emails closely during the next week for your unique 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