It has been an incredibly challenging and unprecedented fortnight for the country and our GFM school community. Our thoughts are, of course, first and foremost with your families and loved ones in this most difficult and uncertain of times.
We would like to reiterate the government’s advice to stay at home whenever possible. We appreciate that this might be challenging for some of our young people and ask you to draw on support you might have through your friends, family and other networks during this time. We ask all our learners to stay in touch with those around them over the phone, by post, or using our online learning platforms where possible.
As an organisation we have tried to support the fight against Covid-19 in our own small way. Each day we have been looking after the children of critical workers to help support the efforts of our NHS. In addition, Bay House School and Sixth Form and Brune Park Community School have donated 200 pairs of safety goggles used by pupils during science lessons. The protective eyewear has been sent to Gosport War Memorial Hospital.
We would also like to thank all parents and carers for the support you have offered to children at home. Our staff have been inundated with messages, pictures, ideas, responses and requests. In such challenging times we have also appreciated the humorous anecdotes and memes relating to the challenges of home education.
Arrangements through what would have been the school Easter holiday:
Lots of subject teams have provided Easter challenges, and there are still many activities to work through on Google Classroom, or through work sent home.
There are also all the tips, advice and guidance that have been sent through over the past two weeks (from exercise to creativity to challenges to quizzes!)
It is entirely up to you as a family as to what you would like to be engaging with through what would have been the school break. We have provided lots of ideas so you have this available to decide what you want to engage with (or not) as a family.
Our ‘Touch base’ programme is continuing to run through this period for families and children we have been keeping in regular contact with, and who have requested additional support, and there is the booked provision for children of critical workers who have no other ‘at home’ provision available.
We are encouraging GFM staff to prioritise taking a well earned rest over the next two weeks so that we have a refreshed workforce ready for whatever the summer term is going to look like. We cannot say enough again how much staff have valued and appreciated your messages and contact through the period of closure and we hope and expect the regular contact to be a feature of the summer term even if this continues to be through school closure.
We are all missing seeing the youngsters each day, missing our face to face contact with so many of you and thinking about everyone in this fantastic community often. We send our best wishes for you to continue to be safe, to stay well and healthy and continue looking out for each other and looking after each other.
