Letter to parents - New Build

20 June 2012 

Dear Parent/ Guardians

We have enjoyed a wonderful return to school after the half term break, regardless of the dreary weather.  I am hoping that your son/daughter has described their experience of the new building for you as another phase has been completed and we are now enjoying the new restaurant.  We are very proud that we really are now accessing first class facilities.

The disruption of working on what is essentially a live building site has not been without its challenges, staff and students have coped wonderfully so far.  Achieving such a complex programme of works would not have been possible without extremely hard work through weekends and over the school breaks.

We are now entering some very difficult phases in the building process.  Working with Kier we have, in the last two weeks, been able to confirm that we are going to be able to achieve a very significant improvement on the original programme.  Originally we were going to experience significant disruption in the autumn term as we planned to move into many of the new facilities and decant out of Laxton ready for the refurbishment of this part of the building.  Work was then due to be complete and everyone in their new facilities by February 2013.

We have now secured vast improvements to this programme, subject to us achieving some very tight deadlines over the next two months.  By agreeing to move out of Laxton block by the 24^th July, we are now looking at being able to move into all the new facilities by the October 2012 half term break.

Clearly, this places significant pressure on staff in terms of us achieving many moves in order to move some departments into their new areas ready for September and other departments into their new temporary locations for the first part of the Autumn half term.  In order to secure this by the 24^th July and to avoid disruption to the beginning of the new term in September, I am proposing to close the school to students earlier than the proposed date of Friday 20^th July to the end of Wednesday 18^th July.  Please note that the Key Stage 3 Awards evening will still go ahead as planned on the evening of the 18^th July and you will receive your individual invitations to this in the usual way if your child is nominated for an award.

I have not been able to confirm this information for you earlier than now as it has been a very difficult task to achieve a change to the original building programme.  I realise that this may cause some of you difficultly with childcare because of the relatively short notice we have given.  As the PE department will not experience the same disruption as other departments, we are proposing to maintain some provision for students for whom child care is an issue.  If you wish for your child to attend this provision on Thursday 19^th July and Friday 20^th July then please complete the reply slip below.  I would also request that you record any other comments for my attention regarding the proposed closure on this slip. 

I am delighted that we have achieved a better building programme which will mean much less disruption next year.  The new facilities will be more than worth the discomfort we are experiencing at present and I thank you for your patience and understating in the meantime.

Yours sincerely

Mrs C Maclean

Principal

CLICK: PE Slip form download