Dear Parents of Secondary DBIS students,
I am writing to update you on a couple of additional changes that we are making to support secondary students learning in school. I would also like to take this opportunity to thank parents who have reached out with their appreciation of the changes that we have made to be able to bring children from across the whole of the secondary school, as well as those who have raised suggestions about how we can move forward.
The first change relates to a small additional modification to the timing of the school day. We appreciate that for students who do not live in Discovery Bay it is more challenging to travel into school for their period 3 lesson at 12 pm. We have therefore moved period 2 slightly earlier, so that it runs from 9:50 – 10:50 am. This will not resolve every challenge but hopefully it helps whilst fitting into the restrictions that we have on our school day.
School day structure for Secondary students
The table below shows when and where secondary students will have their lessons from Monday 11th January.
We encourage students who are able to, to arrive at school from 11:45 am in readiness for their 12:00 pm lesson where possible. This will support those students living a greater distance away, and who are therefore only able to arrive shortly before the start of their period 3 lesson, to be able to arrive at their lesson on time.
| Timing | Delivery - Odd Days (Day 1, 3, 5, 7, 9) | Delivery - Even Days (Day 2, 4, 6, 8, 10) |
|
|---|---|---|---|
| Tutor time (as normal) | |||
| Period 1 (as normal) | |||
| Period 2 (earlier) | |||
| Lunch (earlier) | |||
| Period 3 (later) | Years 8, 9 & 12 not in school* | Years 7, 10 & 11 not in school* |
|
| Period 4 (later) | Years 8, 9 & 12 not in school* | Years 7, 10 & 11 not in school* |
|
| Period 5 (as normal) | Years 8, 9 & 12 not in school* | Years 7, 10 & 11 not in school* |
|
*When students are ‘not in school’ their learning provision will revert to remote, Online Learning through their respective Google Classroom, at the times scheduled above.
We are also slightly changing the structure of our Day 1 of our 10 day secondary cycle , the first of which is this coming Monday 11th January, so that on these days their period 2 lesson will switch with their period 5 assembly/tutor time session. This will mean that every secondary child will have their assembly/tutor time session online during period 2 (instead of during period 5) and their normal period 2 during period 5.
Days when each group of students are able to attend some in school lessons
There are no changes to my previous email about which days students are in school, with different Year groups coming in on alternate days. However for simple reference these are shown below once more:
- On odd-numbered days of the two-week cycle (Day 1, Day 3, Day 5, Day 7, Day 9),Years 7, 10, 11 and 13 will come into school for periods 3, 4 and 5.
- On even-numbered days of the two-week cycle (Day 2, Day 4, Day 6, Day 8, Day 10), Years 8, 9, 12 and 13 will come into school for periods 3, 4 and 5.
For clarification, please note that Monday 11th January is a Day 1 and the days continue sequentially from there (i.e. Tuesday 12th January is Day 2, Wednesday 13th January is Day 3, … , and Friday 22nd January is Day 10 before it loops back to Day 1 on Monday 25th January).
We greatly appreciate the support from our community through these challenging times and I would like to reiterate my thanks for this. We are continuing to explore all of the possibilities for supporting our students as we move forward and will continue to keep you and your children informed about this. In the meantime, if there is anything that we can do, please do reach out to myself, the Secondary Leadership Team, your child’s Head of Year or their form tutor if you have any questions, concerns or suggestions.
Kind regards
Simon Oakley
Head of Secondary