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Principal's update: Tuesday 28 April

Published on 24/04/20

Dear parent/carer,

I hope you and your family are well. I hope you had a Happy Easter and Ramadan Mubarak to all our students and families who will be observing the Muslim holy month.

Thank you for your continued support during these unprecedented times. I hope my message provides you with an insight into all the work that is still taking place at Hope Valley College – albeit mainly remotely. A small number of staff have been in the school building on some days, to look after the children of key workers and some vulnerable students. Everyone else is working from home but continuing to provide the support that our students need.

 

Remote Learning

All remote learning is set on ClassCharts, our online app. You can login to ClassCharts at: https://www.classcharts.com/homework/calendar/Hope-Valley-College

The work will be set on the days highlighted in our Virtual School timetable which you can view at: https://tinyurl.com/y7qh5ej5

We are keen to ensure that students have enough work to do but aren’t overwhelmed or made to feel anxious. Our main priority is our students’ wellbeing. So, if your child has a problem with a particular task, please encourage them to contact their subject teacher for advice and then move onto a different task or subject.

As we enter our sixth week of remote learning, teachers are starting to think about how to provide more feedback and more detailed teaching where possible.  We are beginning to use Microsoft Teams to set work and to provide feedback, some of our teachers are providing video tutorials and photographs of work to help. Please bear with us as we begin to develop this online approach. As ever, not everyone has the same access to IT or wants the same access so we continue to post work to students who have requested this work.  We are also keeping up to date with Government announcements regarding online learning and will update you with any developments.

If your child has any IT problems, get them to email our support team at: ITSupport@hopevalley.derbyshire.sch.uk

  

Support for Students

Our Form Tutors are contacting all the students in their form each week, to check in with them and see how they are getting on, and point them towards further help or support if they need it. Students can also email their Senior House Tutor who is also contacting them every week.

Our School Counsellor is able to offer some support sessions over the phone for our students. They have also set up a counselling network with other professionals who are offering support sessions for any students who are suffering because of family bereavement or illness. To access these services students should contact Senior House Tutors directly, or you can contact them via the school email address: enquiries@hopevalley-chorustrust.org

We also have a range of wellbeing resources available on our website. This includes some new resource packs created by professionals. I strongly recommend looking at them as they contain lots of activities that students can undertake to support their wellbeing - they are the first two items (the Resource Pack and the Self-Care Kit), at the top of this page: https://www.hopevalley-chorustrust.org/studentwellbeing

 

Online Safety

A reminder to try and keep an eye on what your child is accessing online, given the increased time they are spending on the internet. I appreciate that this is difficult, especially when you may have lots of other responsibilities, but I feel it’s too important not to mention. There are some excellent resources on our wellbeing page about this at: https://www.hopevalley-chorustrust.org/studentwellbeing

We have been supporting a small number of students with instances of online bullying this week, some of this has been from ‘fake’ accounts.  Please remind students that we should all be supporting each other and avoiding adding any extra pressure in the form of online unpleasantness.  Please do let tutors or senior house tutors know if we can help to address any issues.

 

Free School Meals

Chorus Education Trust is committed to the government voucher scheme and our school has been working with the provider, Edenred, to ensure that redemption codes are emailed to those families on free school meals on a regular basis.

We appreciate that parents are finding it difficult and time consuming to access the Edenred website and redeem their codes for supermarket vouchers.  This is a national scheme run by the government, not the school, and as such there is significant demand on Edenred’s website. Please be patient when trying to access the site. 

Please be aware we cannot redeem the vouchers for you, or alter email addresses that a code has already been issued to. Please regularly check your email spam and junk folders as the email may go in there depending on your security filters.

Further information on the scheme, a link to the Edenred website and FAQ information is on the school website at: https://www.hopevalley-chorustrust.org/freeschoolmeals

 

Year 9 Students’ Options

These are being finalised and will be sent to Year 9 students next week.

 

Year 11 Students

We are working with schools, colleges and employers to ensure a smooth Y11 transition. If you want to talk about how to prepare for what’s next, particularly if you are concerned about A-level study, please contact your class teacher or subject leader who are ready to help with suggested reading etc One thing we can confirm is that GCSE results day will be the same: Thursday 20 August.

 

Year 11 Hoodies

An email went out this week to Year 11 parents about ordering leavers’ hoodies. Here is a reminder of the key information:

Around now, we would normally be asking our Year 11s to order leavers’ hoodies.  Many businesses are not trading so this has been difficult, however, Heatherhill Farm Embroidery have kindly offered to supply our Year 11s.

If you follow the link below, it will lead you to an online shop where you can place your order directly with the company. The cost is £15.00 per hoodie. I am sure that you can appreciate, we are unable to have the hoodies delivered to school for collection at this time so Heatherhill Farm have offered to post the hoodies, the cost is £3.00.  It will take at least two weeks for the orders to be processed so please place all orders by 11th May 2020.

If would be fantastic if our Year 11s could send us a picture of themselves in their hoodie once they have arrived.

If there are any issues or problems, please feel free to contact Emma Scorer, Senior House Tutor, via email. 

Link to Heatherhill Farm Embroidery HVC leaver hoodies online shop: http://farmembroidery.co.uk/hvc-leavers-hoodies/4594920919

 

School Trips

All trips that were due to take place after the school lockdown for the rest of this academic year will not go ahead. Where we can negotiate moving these trips in to the new academic year we will try to do so (for example, Duke of Edinburgh). Where this is not practical and or possible because of the nature or timing of the trip, we will pursue the tour provider and/or our insurer for a refund of monies paid to date. 

Please be patient with us as we try to unpick the legalities of this unprecedented situation with our providers.  We ask that parents do not pay any more money to school for any trips for the remainder of this academic year and we will be in contact with parents of students on planned trips as soon as we have more information.

 

Covid-19 face masks

You may have seen publicity about the great work of our teachers in creating Covid-19 face masks for local key workers. You can read the full story on our website at: https://www.hopevalley-chorustrust.org/news/?pid=3&nid=1&storyid=62

 

Thank you all for your continued support – it really is appreciated. I hope you all get to enjoy some time together in the sun this weekend.

With very best wishes,

Mrs Gaynor Jones
Principal of Hope Valley College

 

PS. Don’t forget that all the information we are providing during lockdown is available on our website in the Virtual School section. This is highlighted on our homepage but can also be found via this link: https://www.hopevalley-chorustrust.org/virtualschool