Posted May 3 - 2024Headteacher's Newsletter
what's happening at Chesham Grammar
Posted on: June 26th 2020
Head's Blog
Dear Parent,
I'm not quite sure how it happened, but somehow, we find ourselves at the last Friday in June and three weeks from the end of the school year. Three weeks today the summer holiday will be starting for our students and staff and I sincerely hope that at the end of it, we are all able to return to school. I know that many of us can't quite believe that while we can now go shopping and, from next weekend. go to the pub and/or the hairdressers, we cannot send our children back to school. Headteachers are expecting guidance from the Department for Education on how schools will operate in September to be released during the next week so I hope that it won't be long before we can confirm our plans for next year with you.
All students and parents have received the information about our enrichment week and I would like to thank Mrs Dax who has put the programme together as well as all the staff who have contributed to it. As you can tell, a good deal of time, effort and thought has gone into our planning and I do hope that you will encourage your child to participate in the activities on offer. Education is about so much more than what goes on in lessons and I am really pleased that our students have the opportunity to close their school books next week and undertake some extra curricular activities and engage in some learning outside of the curriculum - learning for the joy of learning. Our Year 11 and 13 students are welcome to take part in these activities and Year 11s also have their Sixth Form induction session this coming week to look forward to. We are planning to hold some virtual end of term events (details to follow) and are hoping to be able to share some of what the students do next week during these.
We have all thoroughly enjoyed seeing our Year 12s again this week and I know the students found it useful to touch base with subject staff. As one member of staff noted in an email 'it was wonderful to be in a classroom again, to be able to see the students and to gauge how they are learning. Never again will I take the day-to-day banter and chit-chat we have with our students for granted.' I think this sums up how we all feel.
Well done to Jack in Year 8 who, having completed a Danish language course at the start of lockdown, has since gone on to undertake courses in German and Finnish. Wow! Well done Jack. I am equally proud of Aadi in Year 10 who has written a song entitled 'Couldn't Say Goodbye'. This is about those who have been affected by the loss of a loved one during the pandemic and talks about how difficult it is to cope with loss especially when you have not had the chance to say goodbye. It is very moving and I would like to say well done to Aadi.
My thanks to Mrs Murphy who is co-ordinating a school collection for the Chiltern Foodbank next Wednesday between 12 and 2pm. The details and the protocols are attached. Some of our Year 10s will be involved in this. Thank you to them too.
It was good to be able to work with the Bucks Immunisation Team this week and to see our Year 9 girls and all our Year 8s who came into school for their injections. The nurses involved commented on the conduct of the students and on how helpful our parents were in making the whole process run so smoothly. This has helped to ensure that when schools return to some sort of normality, there will not be a backlog of immunisations to undertake.
As you will be aware, we have been working hard to get refunds for visits which have been unable to take place due to coronavirus. Mrs Dax is our Educational Visits Co-Ordinator and she has worked incredibly hard to process the relevant claims for this, spending hours on the phone to the various companies with whom our bookings were made and our insurers. I know that those of you who have had holidays or travel cancelled during this period will appreciate what an undertaking it has been to deal with all the claims for a whole school activity week, as well as for expeditions to Slovenia and Sri Lanka, two visits to Berlin, one to Iceland, an A level geography fieldwork weekend...you get the picture! As you can tell, between this, centre assessed grades for Years 11 and 13 and enrichment week, Mrs Dax has been busy indeed! All refunds will be paid back into ParentPay as quickly as we can manage.
Finally, do remember that the Friends of CGS are running their annual raffle with the draw taking place on Friday, July 10th, 2 weeks today. Please do support this if you can. Tickets can be purchased via ParentPay. The FOCGS fundraising has obviously been curtailed this year but we are hoping that the raffle will help the Committee to get closer to its annual fundraising total. The FOCGS are also holding a Wine Tasting on Friday, 10th July, via Zoom which looks pretty impressive! I know tickets are selling fast so you will need to act quickly if you would like to attend.
With best wishes for a relaxing weekend,
Annmarie McNaney
Headteacher
