This is a copy of the letter which has been sent home to Year 9 students, and their parents/carers, today:

Dear Parents/Carers,

I am writing to inform you of the staffing challenge currently facing Altrincham College and the decision we feel has to be made in order to support and maintain the provision of quality education for all students, whilst being mindful to the health and wellbeing of all staff. 

I have discussed these challenges with our Chair of Governors, Mrs Wildman, and the CEO of our Trust, Mr Brooks.

Today, there are several members of teaching staff absent, the vast majority of absences self-isolating due to Covid guidance. Whilst we have brought in supply teachers each day this week, we cannot sustain this next week and any supply we can get constitutes only a small proportion of lessons that require cover. Of course, we are utilising all the other strategies to maintain provision, including live lessons delivered from self-isolating staff from home, utilising support staff to maintain provision and SLT members using all leadership time to cover for absent colleagues in lesson times and on break/lunchtime supervision.

On analysis of the timetable, the Year 9 bubble suffers the greatest impact of the high absence level, whereby a high proportion of their lessons across the week would require cover. I must, reluctantly, now take the decision to ask the Year 9 cohort to remain at home next week w/c Monday 23^rd November. Lessons will be delivered remotely via MS Teams (the timetable is below).

We are confident the current spike in both positive cases across the school and staff absence (only in part related to school cases) will be alleviated by the 30^th November, therefore Year 9 students should return to school on Monday 30^th November.

All students in Year 9 will be given extra guidance and support on the use of Microsoft Teams so they can access online lessons next week and a User Guide link can be found below should you wish to go through this with your child/ward over the weekend:

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/distance-learning-with-microsoft-365-guidance-for-parents-and-guardians-89d514f9-bf5e-4374-a731-a75d38ddd588.

Work may also be set on Class Charts.

We have identified our most vulnerable Year 9 students. Parents/carers of these students will be contacted separately to offer them the opportunity to remain in school next week where they will have remote learning as the rest of the year group, but with staff supervision in one room.

If you are a key worker and need your child to come into school next week, we will require proof of this as soon as possible. Please notify us by emailing my PA, Mrs Shields on: dss@altrinchamcollege.com

I can only apologise for any inconvenience this may cause. It is not a decision I have taken lightly but I must ensure the safety and wellbeing of students and staff at all times.

Yours sincerely,

Ms K Earle
Headteacher

 

	2Mon	2Tue	2Wed	2Thu	2Fri
1		R.E.	DRAMA	ENGLISH	MUSIC
Teacher		MAH	MMI	SCY	BMN
2			SCIENCE	MATHS
Teacher			HBH	CPT / EWS
				LWH
3	GEOGRAPHY				ICT
Teacher	JKN				MMT
4	ART		MATHS	FOOD	History
Teacher	RMA		JHK / EJS	NED	RSH
			MOS / EBG
5		FRENCH			TEXTILES
Teacher		KMY			VWS