Dear Parent/Carer,

Is it me or has this week flown by?

Thank you so much for your speed of contact and support as we moved into online learning. Hopefully you have seen the information we are sharing to try to help you access the online lessons? One of the biggest revelations was that you can use the XBox and Playstation to access Google Meet and Classroom. No more FIFA or Among Us!!

The office staff and ICT team have worked tirelessly getting Chromebooks out to students. Please do remember that if you are struggling to access online learning, school places are available and you should contact us so that we can get your daughter/son into school and learning.  The aim of this lockdown is to stay safe and keep learning. If either is a problem then you MUST get in touch, either on the phone or by email. Remember that we have our safeguarding@denemagna.gloucs.sch.uk address to help.

It is vital that your daughter/son logs in during RFL so that we can start our day by checking on the welfare of our students. Please do contact your tutor if there are any concerns as the pastoral support we have in school is carrying on as normal.

We have scaled the lessons back to 50 minutes and increased the breaks, and we will, like last time, be putting in some nice surprises to aid all of our wellbeing. These will be making an appearance from next week.

I do have to say thank you to the teachers who have continued to develop their skills in online teaching. One of the things I love about Dene Magna is how we work together and this has continued to bring us together, even though we are more apart! Staff are sharing resources and ideas and it has been great for me to drop into lessons and see people.

We currently have a number of students in school with us. They have been superb and our teachers and TA team who have been supporting them have really helped. Please remember that it is still early days and we will continue to evolve what we do. I do have to say thanks to you for your part in helping online learning run smoothly. As a parent myself, I know how hard it is to juggle work and keep an eye on home schooling.

Feedback from Y11 Parents Evening was great. Thank you for logging on and it is great to see how much better the system is now from when we trialled it with Y7.

I will finish with a lovely story. My elderly neighbour knows that I am the Head at Dene Magna (he even found the website and had a good look around!). He painted me a lovely postcard of a Sea Eagle which is now taking pride of place in my office. It then led me to this great quote from Jack White:

'The Eagle does not escape the storm. The Eagle simply uses the storm to lift it higher. It spreads its mighty wings and rises on the winds that bring the storm'.  

Not bad, considering he also wrote this:

'Well it's 1 2 3 4
Take the elevator
At the Hotel Yorba
I'll be glad to see you later'

Let's go with the Eagle quote, ok?

Take care everyone.

Stay strong and stay positive.
Steve Brady