Update 9th November 2020
Dear Parents and Carers,
I was informed this morning that unfortunately we have had further positive cases within the school community. I have spent the day working on this with Public Health England. After much discussion, and having done our own track and trace, they have advised us that we need to collapse two bubbles. We will write to the students who need to remain at home for 14 days, but effectively this means that half of Year 9 (X Band) and all of Year 11 will now need to work at home for two weeks.
Clearly this is not what any of us would want, but health considerations need to be our priority. We will also send out guidance to these students on how to access the lessons remotely, using Microsoft Teams.
I appreciate that many of you will have concerns but I have been assured by PHE that they do not believe the cases are linked. I would also like to draw your attention to the latest data on confirmed cases. Redditch has now overtaken Bromsgrove and has the highest number of cases in the county. In fact, the numbers are broadly similar to those in Birmingham, which had been in Tier Two restrictions before this latest national lockdown. I attach some graphics below to illustrate this. It is vital that all of us play our part in keeping the spread of the virus under control; both by obeying the ‘Hands, Face, Space’ messages but also by ensuring that we all observing the lockdown rules when we are at home. The school cannot control what happens in the community and we are relying on each other to ensure we play our parts in driving down the infection rates in the town.
Finally, please can I ask that you do not contact school and ask us to give any more details. We cannot do this. If you have individual concerns please contact the relevant Head of Year in the first instance.
Thank you for your continued support
Adrian Ward
