Please find below a document released regarding pupils sitting Examination with AQA and Pearson. CCEA have not yet released any further information.

Please find below the Principals letter concerning Examination updates concerning all pupils and parents/carers of year 11-14 pupils.

The Education Authority has produced a great resource which has been put together for all post primary pupils. Please take time to read through this document with your child.

In these difficult times we want to continue to provide support to our pupils and our pastoral structures remain in place. Below you will find useful information on support that is available.

Mrs Bell’s Pastoral Letter

ICSS Counselling Letter

CYPSP Support Pack

Living Life to the Full

INEQE :

• Animation story book explaining the coronavirus
• Coronavirus explained using images makaton

Following our period of closure, we are now in a position to reopen to accommodate the children of key workers.

Ballyclare Secondary School will open on Monday 30th March 2020 at 9.00 am

We would like to remind parents/carers that sending their child/children to school during this time should be as a last resort.

I would ask parents/carers to note the following:

• Children who attend will do so from 9.00 am to 3.00 pm.
• All children will follow the hygiene routines as stated by PHA and will be provided with hand sanitiser and materials to keep their computer clean.
• Pupils will be seated at the same computer every day and social distancing rules will be followed.
• Children will attend in full school uniform.
• Pupils will be located in the ICT Department and this will enable them to complete remote learning activities.
• The school is offering to “supervise” children in line with Department of Education Guidance. As such, pupils are not being taught and they are required to ensure they have the necessary materials with them for study. 
• Pupils will follow the proposed schedule detailed below.
• At the end of the day, all children will be brought to the front entrance hall and will be collected by parents/carers. 

Mrs K Bell
Principal

UCAS are extending May’s UCAS Undergraduate decision and reply deadlines following an announcement by the UK Government, asking universities and colleges in England to hold back from making unconditional offers or amending existing offers.

We can now confirm the new dates:

These dates have been updated in Track, and UCAS has emailed applicants to let them know if their deadlines have changed.

UCAS hope this gives students and their chosen universities and colleges the extra time they need to fully consider any decisions and offers, and ensures fairness in admissions is maintained.

Since the UK Government’s announcement, the Office for Students (OfS) have shared further guidance and FAQs with universities and colleges in England to explain exactly what is covered in the two-week pause. In addition, the Higher Education Funding Council for Wales (HEFCW) has written to vice-chancellors at Welsh universities and colleges, requesting that they also undertake a two-week pause on unconditional offers.

For all the latest COVID-19 updates, visit ucas.com.

Following the announcement regarding school closures from 20^th March 2020, our team have been working on an range of activities to continue to support you and your students.

Many of you will regularly invite us into school or college to attend Careers Fairs and deliver talks and workshops on various topics related to HE decision making and skills development. The attached overview document highlights the talks and sessions that are still available for you;

• We can virtually deliver to small groups of students still in school (sessions can be tailored to mixed year groups)
• Students can book themselves on and join sessions individually
• A library of pre-prepared resources will be made available for students to access
• We are finalising worksheets to support students working at home
• Live Chat sessions are available for students who want to find out about courses and University life.

We want to respond to what you need from us; please get in touch if you have any feedback on the topics you would like to hear about, delivery methods, and with any other ideas.

In relation to our face to face activity, we’re continuing to plan for our summer events including the Lancashire HE Exhibition, Summer Residentials, Open Days and Subject Taster Days and we will keep in touch as soon as decisions are made about whether they will take place as planned, will be postponed or will be delivered via an alternative platform.

As you would expect, it is unlikely that the Health and Social Care Taster Day (28/04), the Law Taster Day (29/04) and the Teachers and Careers Advisors Conference (01/05) will take place on campus and we will provide further detail about these events after Easter to advise how we are moving forward.

You may also hear from our Faculty of Education who have also developed a dedicated hub of resources to support engagement and learning over the coming months. The resources have been pooled from various sources and cover a wide range of different subject areas. Please do feel free to share the details with your students.

To find out more about anything in the attached overview, please reply to this email. We will continue to review how we can support you, and whilst we are very conscious of the pressures you are facing, we will keep in touch as we update our offer. We will also provide information in relation to how we are communicating with 2020 applicants about their transition and entry to University, and any other key Edge Hill messages.

Please see the letter below concerning Careers Information for Year 12 pupils.

Dear Parent/Carer,

This is an exceptionally difficult time for all of society and we find ourselves in unchartered waters. During this time, it is vitally important that we all follow the advice of the Public Health Agency, General Practitioners and other medical staff and the Department of Education. As of 23^rd March 2020, Ballyclare Secondary is closed to pupils.

The uncertain period ahead will be unprecedented for the staff and pupils of Ballyclare Secondary School.  Lack of face-to-face interaction with our pupils for a prolonged period has forced us to explore and instigate a range of remote teaching methods to support our learners as best we can.  With this will come challenges that that our staff have endeavoured to overcome with ingenuity and creativity. I would like to thank all staff for their efforts to date in this regard and this will be an evolving process.

I appreciate that this is also a very new situation for parents and carers. Your children normally in our care are now at home and you are managing a completely different daily routine. I do not underestimate the enormity of the task as many of you are working from home as well.

The positive pupil – staff relationships and excellent pastoral care are the reasons why we continue to build our pupils’ personal success stories. At this difficult time, we all need to explore and utilise other strategies to ensure we continue to do this. As parents and carers you have always shown your support for our school this I believe, will encourage our pupils to continue to work hard even from home.

With a united front in the time ahead, our common main objectives should be as follows:

• To continue to prepare Year 11 and Year 13 pupils for GCSE and A-Level examinations which they will take next year. (These two year groups are effectively missing out on possibly a full term of work in school.)
• To maintain a degree of structure and routine for learners across all key stages
• To support our pupils so that they can continue to acquire new knowledge and skills
• To determine, if possible, whether the learners have made progress and achieved positive outcomes from the set tasks

This will not be easy and staff have already made excellent plans and resources to make these goals achievable. I commend all parents and carers who have already ensured that your children are prepared for learning remotely.

Providing structure and routine is important for all pupils when not in school as it will be difficult to be focussed every day particularly as there will be that end of term feeling.

I would suggest the following as a possible daily schedule for the pupils’ day.

Daily Schedule

As part of our remote learning programme, work has been set for all year groups. 

It is important that parents and carers are aware that we have put in place work with the following guidelines, as we know that not one size will fit all. Home learning is very different to learning in the classroom to the classroom. The work should:

• Be realistic – we know we need to cater for a range of home learning/parenting environments.  Some pupils will have extensive computer access with excellent broadband and some will have very limited access. We know that you may also have only one computer and more than one child! You may also need the computer to complete your own work from home.

• Be planned to help establish a routine – Departments may be sending one communication per week to each year-group outlining tasks which would cover the normal time allotted to that subject per week.  Pupils can then manage their own time throughout the week for the completion of work set.
• Provide a manageable pupil workload – Pupils will be set work that will take no longer, than their normal timetabled lessons to complete.
• Be accessible and we will use the school website as a main channel of communication – Information will be regularly uploaded onto the school website. Some departments are also using pupil email, Google Classroom and My School. (Please refer to the user guides, already on our website, for further guidance on both of these platforms).
• Pupils should use their own C2K school email account, or another school agreed on-line platform.

We would encourage pupils to engage in self-assessment as much as possible to reduce reliance on direct teacher feedback.

Please bear in mind that there is still uncertainty as to how Year 13 pupils go forward and that courses may still need to be finished for potential future external assessments and completion of UCAS and Higher Apprenticeship applications.

I would like to thank you for your ongoing commitment and support of our school in these most challenging of times. We will need parents and carers to continue to be   part of the team supporting our pupils. I appreciate that the task is not an easy one but even though we are remote learning we are still a team.

Please remember that you do not have to be an expert in any of the subjects your child will be working on as a remote learner. You do not have to become a “super parent” we fully appreciate you will have your own concerns and responsibilities at this time. You just need to know how best to spend the time you do have. Remember that you are an “expert” in your own child and you have always been their most important teacher. Your support, interest and encouragement will make all the difference to your child’s motivation and ability to cope with their school work while learning from home.

Yours sincerely

Mrs K Bell

Principal