Headteachers Letter – 10th December 2021
Dear Parents and Carers,
We have enjoyed an excellent week at Wollaston School, with a number of incredible highlights, as we approach the final school week of 2021!
Christmas Concert
A packed Hall was treated to the return of the festive and inspiring Christmas Concert on Thursday evening! As always, the event was a sell out and an enthusiastic audience was treated to a a wonderful range of musical genres from students across the school. From the full orchestra and concert band to folk group, jazz band, A Capella groups, samba drummers, the mighty Ukuleles and a number of soloists, an incredible range of talent was on display. We have missed many things during the period of Covid restrictions, but it was a real treat to return to such an important event on the Wollaston extra curricular calendar. Students from Years 7 to Year 13 were involved, in addition to a couple of Wollaston alumni who could not resist the opportunity to return for the concert! It was wonderful to see students across year groups working so well together and congratulations to all who performed as well as to our professional and talented stage managements, sound and lighting crews. Thanks also to the team of staff from Performing Arts and from across the school for such an inspiring evening. A night to celebrate – and it was wonderful to return to such an important whole school community event.
House Competition – I’m a Celebrity…..
Almost 300 staff and students were packed into the Hall on Tuesday lunchtime for the long awaited return of a house competition favourite. Decidedly not for the faint hearted (or stomached) Mr Beeby led 8 staff, backed by a loud and enthusiastic audience! A bumper haul of house points were on offer – and Mr Beeby, who leads our House system reveals the outcome:
“WOW!! What an amazing event, staff have gone above and beyond to provide a show for a packed audience. The eating and drinking trials were without doubt the toughest (and smelliest) that we have ever had including hot chillies, dirty burgers, vomit fruit and fermented duck eggs! Everyone who participated is recognised for their determination, commitment and resilience – they were very brave souls. And of course we have to say huge congratulations to Nightingale House, with a special mention for House Leader Mr Asonganyi and Mr Atherton who were participants.”
Pictures can be found on the school website HERE
Christmas Lunch
We are fortunate to enjoy our own excellent in-house catering team, who also provide food for a number of primary schools. This Wednesday saw our amazing team deliver an incredible 700 high quality Christmas lunches at Wollaston School and across our primary partnership schools. The dining hall was fully decked with festive decorations and the Christmas dinner proved as popular as ever! Students and staff enjoyed the lunch and another reason why our canteen and kitchen is so popular, both at Christmas and throughout the year! Thanks to the kitchen team for such a successful Christmas lunch and pictures can be found on the website HERE.
Student Achievements
Congratulations to James Barrett in Year 11, who represented the East Midlands region in the National Waterpolo Tournament last month. James has also been retained in the latest Northampton Saints Under 16 Rugby Academy squad, alongside playing for Northampton Old Scouts RFC. Well done to James, who has achieved all of this whilst working towards his GCSE qualifications.
We are always keen to celebrate student achievements both inside and outside of school, and if you have any achievements you would like to make us aware of, please contact JADE EMAIL ad we would be delighted to share the news!
PE Clubs
After a busy round of fixtures and activities this term – PE clubs will not run next week. We will return with a full programme in January.
Prohibited Items
A reminder that scissors and aerosol cans and deodorants are not permitted at Wollaston School. Both are potentially dangerous items, and if students need scissors for a lesson or activity – we will always provide them.
The spraying of aerosol deodorants is a potential trigger for asthma attacks, and we have had an unfortunate incident this week in which (a totally unintentional) spray of a deodorant can has resulted in an individual suffering with an asthma attack. We do recognise that students may wish to use deodorant and would encourage the use of roll on style toiletries.
Edulink
A reminder that we are rolling out our new communications platform edulink one. Parents are likely to receive an email link from edulink with Wollaston School listed in the message. This is a legitimate communication and will guide you to set up regarding the new platform.
Coronavirus Restrictions
The move to Plan B announced by the Government does not significantly impact our operations, as we had already made the move to mandatory face coverings, including for all visitors to our school. Active cases remain at relatively low levels and we monitor these daily. Our contingency plans have already been approved by Health Protection and we remain ready to introduce additional measures should our cases increase, or should we be advised to by external health agencies.
There are however some national guidelines which we would like to draw your attention to.
- If an individual is notified of a positive test result of the omicron variant – the entire household should isolate immediately and follow all advice from test and trace.
- Visitors to a range of settings (including schools) are strongly encouraged to take a lateral flow test before visiting. This is to ensure that visitors do not pose a risk of transmission.
Coronavirus Testing
We have received the next batch of lateral flow tests for home testing and will distribute these on Wednesday and Thursday of next week. We encourage staff and students to continue to test twice weekly during the final week of term and throughout the holidays. The only exception for this is for staff and students who have had a previous covid-19 infection during the previous 90 days. We would also ask that all students test before their first day back at school in January. Combined with on- site testing, this will ensure a “belt and braces” approach which will allow us to start the new year in an environment which is as safe as possible.
I would also like to thank the parents and members of the school community who have volunteered to assist with on site testing on the first days back at school. We are enormously grateful and could not do it without you!
We do need consent forms for all students for on site testing, if you have not yet returned the form, please do so here: Covid Testing Consent Form
Flu Vaccinations
There are flu (influenza) vaccinations scheduled for the 27th and 31st January 2022, for students in Years 7-11. As with all vaccination programmes, parental consent is required and the form can be found here: Flu Vaccination Consent Form
Free School Meals Vouchers
We are once again pleased to support with providing supermarket vouchers over the holidays for children who are entitled to free school meals. We will email out details to eligible families before the end of the day on Friday 17th December 2021. For any enquiries please contact Sara Francis FrancisS@wollaston-school.net
I hope that you enjoy a wonderful weekend and are able to devote some time to Christmas preparations! As always, please do not hesitate to get in touch if there is any aspect of our work which you would like to discuss.
Mr James Birkett
Headteacher