Dear Parent and Carer
I hope that you and your loved ones are safe and well.
As we approach the end of the school year, I would like to thank you for your support and kindness especially over the past few months. Many in our school community have faced the toughest of times during this pandemic, and our school community have pulled together to support one another. It has been lovely to welcome so many of our students back to school for ‘catch-up, check in and prepare’ sessions over these past three weeks.
Autumn term return for all pupils
As you are aware, the autumn term in Wales will start from Tuesday, 1 September 2020 for staff, followed by a phased return for pupils. All pupils will return to school by Monday 14 September 2020. There will be planning, reorganisation and staff training days at the beginning of the term, followed by enhanced transition days for our new Year 7 pupils and then a focus on our Year 11, Year 12 and Year 13 students who will be sitting exams next summer.
As explained in my letter last week, additional advice and guidance for schools will be published over the first weeks of the summer break. We will therefore publish our detailed plan to you for the safe reopening of our school two weeks before your child is due to return to school for the autumn term. This will, I hope, include information about CCBC services such as their school transport arrangements.
We will send our plan, Questions and Answers documentation and all other relevant information to you through our usual communication channels via text to you. For the parents of our new year 7 pupils, we will send this information to the email address you have provided. All information will also be shared on our school website.
School uniform
All pupils will attend in their full school uniform in September. Our school uniform expectations remain the same and are detailed on the school website. For those families who qualify for the PDG Access Grant, please refer to the information sent to you from CCBC.
Results Days
In the days leading up to these days in the summer holidays, all pupils in Y11, Y12 and Y13 will receive an email to their school email account to explain the processes for Results Days (A level/AS on Thursday 13 August and GCSE on Thursday 20 August). At the moment it is our intention to ask students in Y11 and Y13 to indicate whether they would like to attend school to collect their results early in the morning or to receive their results by email that morning. In order to ensure small numbers on school site, Y12 students will receive their results by email.
Although we will keep this under review over the coming weeks, those students who wish to collect their results in person will be given a time for that collection. Only those students who have an allocated time and a small number of staff will be allowed on school site on these days.
Once students in Y11, Y12 and Y13 have received their results they will then have the opportunity to book a short interview on site with a member of staff either on the afternoon of their results day or the following day. This will give all students the opportunity, should they wish, to discuss their next steps, enrol in our sixth form, discuss their results, or seek further advice and support.
All students in Y11 and Y13 will receive an email to their school email account later today with two videos attached with messages from some familiar faces!
At the end of this term, we also say farewell to Mrs Newnham who is retiring from the school after many years of diligent service. We thank her for all that she has done to offer wonderful opportunities to so many students in our school over the years, and wish her very happy and long retirement.
On behalf of everyone at St Cenydd, I would like to thank you for your continued support, encouragement and kindness over these challenging months. We are very much looking forward to seeing all of our pupils back in September and welcoming our new Year 7 to our school.
I hope that you and your family have an enjoyable summer. Please take care and stay safe.
With thanks
Miss Collins
Headteacher
