Headlines By James Saunders 15th January 2021
6 There is hope My theme this week is hope. After one full week of remote learning I am hopeful that our learners will make the progress they so richly deserve. I am hopeful that we will be able to do better for them this time round. Our teachers have worked their socks off this week to up our online offer. I have even done some online lessons myself - and loved them once I got over the technical challenges. What I can confirm is that a lot goes into preparing and delivering remote lessons and it is most definitely worth it. Teachers have commented on how lovely it has been to see the smiling faces of their classes and to hear their voices. Learners have told me they are really enjoying this format of learning. And parents have passed on their thanks to our staff for what they have been doing this week. One week in and I am hopeful that we will maintain the excellent progress our learners made in the first term over this lockdown. There may be a few more teething problems but things are most certainly heading in the right direction. However, there is another hope in the air and that is the national rollout of vaccinations. I am sure that, like me, you are constantly hearing about people who have been affected by COVID - it is getting closer to us all the time and more and more people are becoming personally affected. Everyday I learn about someone connected to our community who has experienced the many difficulties that COVID brings. These range from economic ones, to mental health ones, to the ultimate pain of losing a loved one. Right now with so much loss around us it really is important that we provide hope for each other - I can’t see anyone else doing that for us right now.
I would like to ask you all to help me in raising hope across our whole community. Let’s share the hope that comes with the rollout of vaccinations. Every time you hear of someone connected to our community that receives a vaccination it is one step closer to the end of the pandemic. Let’s celebrate this together and shout it from the rooftops. We are so used to seeing fear inducing daily statistics it’s time we had some more positive stats to counterbalance that. This is a plea for you to let me know when you hear of someone connected to our community who has received the vaccine - it could be a friend, a relative, or a key health worker. Every one of them will spur us on to the end. They will be our coach, our motivator and our collective bringer of hope. Just this week I know of several people within our community that have received the vaccine. Next week we are supporting the community minibus to ferry local residents to the clinic next to receive theirs too. Please keep this hope alive by letting me know every time you hear of a vaccination and I will raise the profile every week so that we can together cling on to this hope. Each week I shall share the good news with you that more and more people are becoming vaccinated. I will kick things off this week with a six. Six people have shared with me this week how the vaccine will benefit them. How many have you heard about? Email me directly, or better still let everyone know on our Facebook page. I shall keep a count each week via these headlines. I wish you a safe weekend. We will get through it together James Saunders Headteacher