Head’s Letters

We have been dodging the downpours here at APS this week but I am looking forward to some sunshine next week. This will be welcome as we are starting to get all the year groups back into school for some pastoral and social interaction over the course of the next fortnight. I am really looking forward to this as for many it has been a very long time since they last stepped onto the site.

I thought with this in mind, it was a good opportunity to share with you our thoughts about what school may look like in September and the planning that we have been undertaking.

We will continue to be led by the government guidance regarding the reopening of schools but this guidance has, as yet, been limited so we are looking at two possible options and how we can make them work best for Abingdon Prep. We will of course be monitoring the situation throughout the summer and we will continue to communicate to parents when we have information to share, so do please keep an eye on your emails during the holiday.

Our overriding concern is the safety of our pupils and staff. We already have a very comprehensive risk assessment which we put together for the reopening of the school. This has been shared with you previously, and for those parents who have boys returning for sessions in the final two weeks, I have shared it again earlier today with some additions referencing this return. Please do take the time to read this along with a new Q&A document, which was again shared earlier with the relevant year groups.

The two options we are working on for the return to school in September are:

Option 1: ​The School reopens with all pupils in every day.

This is clearly our preferred option. However, if this were the case, we may well need to adapt some of our events if large gatherings were still not permissible, for example, we may not be able to have sports fixtures, whole school assemblies or social events after school. The Other Half would continue wherever possible.

This week has seen a welcome return to school for those year groups that have been directed by the government and for those of you who are interested, I have attached my video for the boys that I shared today as a link at the bottom of this letter.​ ​Hopefully it will give you an idea of what the classrooms look like and what they have been getting up to in break times.

It has been lovely to hear the sound of laughter and see the camaraderie back in the school buildings and at break times. The boys in school have taken the social distancing measures very seriously and been swapping stories about their lockdown experiences. It is so important that we do continue to maintain the clear bubbles that are helping to protect the Abingdon Prep community. Huge thanks too should go to parents for being so supportive and patient with the new routines at drop off and pick up times.

Reception and Year 1 seem to have been up on their feet dancing every time I have seen them at work this week, either in their maths sessions or PE. I would imagine both boys and teachers have been going home rather tired at the end of the day!

For those boys who are not back in school, it has been great to see more of their videos being uploaded and also to look through some of the great work that is being submitted. The Year 7 ‘toilet roll challenge’ video is well worth a watch if you have yet to see it and the cereal box advertising campaigns in Year 6 maths also brought a smile to my face.

I hope that you were all able to enjoy the half term break and that the boys are ready for a final push with their remote learning over the coming weeks. One of the differences this year, compared to all others, is actually that the boys will be focused on their work and lessons for a longer period of time as we are not able to run the trips and celebratory events that always take up such a significant portion of the second half of term.

We have reached half term and it has certainly been a period in my educational life that I will never forget. Today, I have sent the boys a video thanking them for the way that they have approached their work this term. It has been an entirely new way of learning and could certainly be described as uncharted territory for them, as well as all of their teachers and their parents. The boys have, like their teachers and parents, risen to the task and I am so encouraged to hear from teachers how well most of the boys are working and I have seen some amazing examples this week of fantastic work from Pre-Prep all the way through to Year 8. Resilience and perseverance have needed to be shown by the whole Abingdon Prep community and I am very proud to have seen this from all quarters.

Today, in this letter, I am sharing with you our risk assessment for the phased reopening of the school for year groups Reception, 1 and 6. Assuming that there are no changes to government guidelines, we will welcome back boys in these year groups on the 1 June. I would ask parents with children in these year groups to read the risk assessment carefully so that you can be reassured that we have put in a raft of measures focusing on keeping your children and our staff safe. You can download the risk assessment ​here​ (it takes a few seconds).

I have also included a link to our Q&A document in which we answer questions that were raised from the survey that you all kindly completed last week. There were many key questions and I hope that by reading this Q&A, in combination with our risk assessment, it will help you to gain a more detailed understanding of the way we have planned to reopen to these year groups. You can download the Q&A ​here​.

Next week, we will be sending through some further specific communications to those year groups regarding the return to school with key reminders for the boys. I will also be sending out a video to Year 6 boys explaining what the school day is going to look like. It would be appreciated if you could talk through these measures with your sons so that the boys are aware of what they will need to bring into school and the fact that it will not be a return to the ‘normal’ school day. I should also add that we will be picking up emails over half term so if you do have any questions, then please get in touch so that we can answer them for you.

It has been an incredibly busy week for us here with the announcement from the government of their plan for a phased reopening of schools. Today, you will all have received an email from me containing a letter regarding our plans for this phased reopening, in addition to requesting feedback regarding our current remote working offer. I would really appreciate you taking the time to complete this as it will help us to prepare further for the second half of term.

The boys have continued to work hard at home and I wanted to say thank you to all of you for the support that so many of you are giving to your sons with their work. I know that this is not always easy given your personal commitments and work. I have had Quinn, who has just started to work out how to open a door, sneak into a number of my Zoom meetings, generally demanding ‘play duplo’ or ‘out garden’, and then start a meltdown when I have to tell him Daddy is a bit busy. The mute button certainly has its uses!

If you do not follow our Twitter feed or other social media outlets, I really would encourage you to do so as it is an easy way to see what some of the boys have been getting up to and have been sharing with us.

The boys have had another busy week and I have been hugely impressed with the way they seem to have adapted to their remote learning. The teachers have told me that almost all of the boys have become far more adept in their use of the technology and are producing some excellent work. It has also been lovely to hear that they are enjoying the opportunity of chatting via their Zoom times with the form and sharing their experiences of lockdown. I was particularly impressed with the middle section remote scavenger hunt that took place on Wednesday afternoon. It sounded like great fun!

The weather has certainly taken a turn for the worse this week and the rain has curtailed some of our social distancing cricket sessions at key worker care. I hope that you have been able to continue to get outside and I have enjoyed seeing many families taking part in the million metre weekly challenge.

I would definitely encourage you to keep up to date with the school website, twitter and instagram pages as they are a great way to see what many of our boys and families have been getting up to in the week. This week I have been hugely impressed with the marble maze creations and some fantastic models of plant and animal cells. The creative element of education at school is still going strong during this period of lockdown. More instrumental pieces have been added to the musical section on Google Classroom which have been particularly enjoyable to listen to and if you have not listened to our director of music playing Bach on his home made organ, then I would also suggest this is well worth a listen.

I have attached below the link to my video assembly from earlier in the week and also my message to the boys from today if you would like to watch either, along with the school’s social media addresses for you to keep up to date with what is going on.

I hope that many of you were able to see my video that was sent out on Tuesday. I am glad to say that the birds have continued to visit our feeders, but no goldfinches yet, and the bumble bees have remained busy in the garden. After a long day in front of a screen, it is a lovely way to wind down a little outside watching nature going about its business. I should add though that Quinn has become very excited about seeing upside down squirrels stealing food from the bird feeders and seeing the numerous rabbits that have now invaded the garden and dug holes across it!

I think it is really important for me to say thank you to all of you for your support and patience as we undertake this new way of educating your boys. It has been lovely to receive so many positive messages about things that have worked well but also the constructive feedback where there are areas that we still need to work on so that the boys can get the maximum benefit out of their time in front of a screen. The staff have been working really hard in all areas of the school and I know from speaking virtually with them, there has been some fantastic work submitted by the boys. I have no doubt that the boys’ level of IT literacy will have skyrocketed by the time life returns to normal.

One of the highlights this week for me was seeing some of the instrumental performances boys have uploaded to the ‘whole school assemblies and singing’ Google Classroom. It was fantastic to see a few boys playing pieces on their different instruments at home. I would love to see a few more of these, so please do encourage your sons to get uploading. I would be really impressed if there were a virtual collaboration between boys up there next week!

Pre-Prep produced some amazing augmented reality images this week in their IT lesson. They were clearly having a huge amount of fun with this and a whole range of different animals were appearing on screen with them, with my favourite being the emperor penguin. Do look at our homepage on the website to see some of these great images.