News

Dear Families,

Welcome to the end of week 4 of lockdown part 2, and by now it feels like we have very much got into the routine of the remote learning. I hope that your sons and daughters are remaining engaged with their work and trying their best. As ever there are a few things I would like to make you aware of this week.

Year 11 and 13 update

The consultation around what will replace the GCSE, A Level and BTEC exams closes today. I hope families and students had a chance to look at the proposals that I sent around last week and watch Mr Ridley’s video, and I hope you have then been able to send your feedback to the DFE and Ofqual. I imagine it will be at least two to three weeks before we are likely to hear the outcome from this, but I will keep you posted if we hear anything before then.

A reminder to all of our Year 11 students that the deadline for completing your application to the 6^th Form is 26^th February, so please get on line and get the form completed as soon as possible. As soon as you have completed your application you will receive information about a telephone based interview / discussion about your 6^th Form subject choices with a member of the school’s Leadership Team.

Congratulations to all of those students in Year 13 who have completed their UCAS applications. Once again, over 80% of our cohort have completed applications to continue their studies at university. We are keeping our fingers crossed for all of them as we await the offers.

Return to school from 8^th March

Families will no doubt have heard the Prime Minister's announcement that he hopes for all students to return to school from Monday 8th March. Clearly there are a number of caveats with that date depending on how the national Covid situation plays out, but as the time draws nearer we will obviously contact you to let you know what our plans are for managing the re-opening and the mass testing if there is still an expectation on us to do that. Fingers crossed the date does not need to be moved any later.

Remote learning

The remote learning programme will continue again next week as it has since the start of term. Please can I remind families to let us know if your sons / daughters are finding the workload too much. It is hard for to teachers to judge how quickly and easily students are completing work when they are not sat in front of them so please let us know if the workload is too much, and your son’s / daughter's teachers can make adjustments as necessary.  Some tips for your sons / daughters relating to managing their remote learning are attached.

Reporting students absence from live lessons

A reminder please to let us know if your son / daughter is unwell and will not be able to attend their scheduled live lessons just as you would if the school were open as usual. This saves teachers a lot of time unnecessarily chasing student absences.

Key worker / vulnerable student provision

Our key worker provision will continue again next week. As you have been doing so far please confirm on which days your son / daughter  will be attending, and only make use of this provision if you really need to, to help us keep the numbers manageable. A reminder as well that students accessing our key worker / vulnerable student provision must arrive on site by 8:30 so that they can be registered and then logged on in time for period 1 at 8:45.

Free School Meals

As I said last week, the Edenred Free School Meal Voucher scheme is now up and running. If your son / daughter is entitled to Free School Meals and you have not yet received any vouchers please contact Ms Siddell in the first instance. asiddell@lpsb.org.uk

Screen Free Friday

Next week is Children's Mental Health Week and there has been a great deal in the press about the negative impact that excessive screen time is having on the mental wellbeing of students. To that end, next Friday (5th February) will be 'Screen Free Friday'. On this day there will be no live lessons taught and instead we are encouraging students to do other things which don't involve computers or mobile phones. You will have received a letter yesterday with some suggestions for what you might do on that day, and the link to the letter and information is included below. I would encourage families to also possibly restrict video game and TV time on that day to give our students a real break from screens.

https://www.lpsb.org.uk/1104/news/post/32/screen-free-day-friday-5th-february-2021

Emails outside of office hours

As computers and emails have now become the dominant form of communication between teachers and parents please can I ask that we respect people's working hours when sending emails to staff. I do not expect my staff to respond to emails outside of their normal working hours during the week, or at all at weekends, so please be patient in expecting a response if you contact a teacher at these times. Obviously we would prefer that you do not send emails outside of office hours anyway, although I realise this is not always possible as you are working yourselves. 

16-19 Bursary Fund

The next window for applications from Sixth Form students to the 16-19 Bursary Fund is next Friday 5^th February. I would encourage you to make use of this financial support if you are eligible and need support with any items. Full details and the application form are available at https://www.lpsb.org.uk/1092/16-19-bursary-fund . Applications and any supplementary information eg. receipts and evidence of income should be sent by email to Ms Dell at adell@lpsb.org.uk. If you have previously applied for the Bursary in a previous round and been successful, you can apply again and do not need to re-submit evidence of your household income. If you have any questions please contact Mrs Siddell at asiddell@lpsb.org.uk for more information.

Weekly Sports Challenge update

It has been another very active week in the PE department. Please see the PE Report with this email for the results of the Monopoly Challenge last week, and for the details of this week’s Super Mario Challenge. Our Screen Free Friday next week presents an excellent opportunity to get active.

KS3 Drama and Dance Competition – ‘Attitude to Learning’ Week 3 Results

Attached are the results for top students of week 3 for the ‘Attitude to Learning’ Competition for Drama and Dance. Both departments have been blown away with the quality of the theory booklets and the practical elements are outstanding! We are delighted with the students engagement, creativity and focus.  Thank you for your support.

More information of the expectations, rewards and students participation are included in the PowerPoint. Results are posted weekly on the following social media platforms:

Instagram: @langley_park_school_for_boys @lpsb_dance @lpsb_drama

Facebook: Langley Park School for Boys

Twitter: @LPSBNews

I remain grateful to all of the staff, students and families who have pulled together during this lockdown to keep our students learning. It has been a real team effort. I would particularly like to mention this week my team of Teaching Assistants who have been doing an immense job of balancing their support of our key worker and vulnerable student provision on site, with their responsibilities to the students that they work with day to day which usually involves them attending the same live lessons as the students. Also my team of Cover Coaches have led the key worker provision and have been on site every day. Thank you to you all.

It's that time of the week again where we all need to take some time to relax. I wish you all a pleasant and restful weekend. Time to log off....

Best wishes

Mr S. Parsons

Headteacher

Langley Park School for Boys

Week-3-Drama-Dance-ATL.pdfPE-Report-29th-Jan-2021.pdfFriends-Letter-Coordinator.pdfFriends-Letter-Coordinator-1.pdf