7 May 2020

Dear Student and Parent/Carer,

Year 10 Update

I do hope that you are all well and that our Year 10 students are maintaining a good focus on the
remote learning being provided by our teachers.

Preparation for Year 11 and GCSE Examinations

It is really important, even in these challenging times, that all students are staying focused on
their learning. We are aware that many of our boys are making a great effort with the work.

We all hope that we will be able to return to school in the near future. When we do, we will be
checking student progress and making sure that each individual student is ready to start the Year
11 work. For students who have been working well, this will not be an issue. However, for others,
not only will they have missed some vital learning but this might well require some catch-up work
to ensure ‘GCSE Readiness’ and progression into Year 11.

If any student is having difficulties accessing the work, please do feed this back through the
subject “Teams Chat” or through the weekly contact with a member of staff.

For the remainder of this period of remote working, and starting on Monday 11 May, we will be
requiring all Year 10 students to register their attendance on Microsoft Teams by 11.00am each
day. This will be treated like a normal attendance mark. In addition, students will be required to
display evidence of work. Students will do this by, either, submitting items of completed work to
Microsoft Teams/OneNote or showing engagement with and progress on another learning
platform. The teaching staff will be, first, directing students to these online locations as well as
providing feedback on the work.

GCSE Statistics & GCSE Mathematics

We have now received guidance from Ofqual, the examinations regulator, that we can submit a
“centre assessed grade” for Year 10 students who were due to sit GCSE statistics this summer.

This means that the examination boards will give a statistics GCSE grade for Year 10 students,
as if the summer examination had continued as normal. Whilst this is clearly not an ideal
situation, we have made this decision so that we can switch our focus to the priority subject -
GCSE mathematics - for the remainder of Year 10 and Year 11. Final examination grades will be
issued on the normal results day on Thursday 20 August. From Monday 11 May, class teachers
will provide remote work for mathematics for the remainder of this academic year.

Thank you for your support and very best wishes.

Yours sincerely,

Euan Ferguson
Headteacher