Wednesday 30 November National Day of Action

24 November 2011

To All Parents, from Chiquita Henson, Headteacher

Re Wednesday 30 November 2011

As you are aware Teachers and Support Staff Unions recently balloted their members with regard to a national day of action across the public sector on Wednesday 30 November 2011.

I have been notified today that over 50% of our teaching staff as well as several members of our support staff team are planning to take industrial action on Wednesday 30 November. Therefore, regrettably, we will be unable to open the School as normal as it will not be possible for us to provide a worthwhile and safe educational experience for all our pupils.

I confirm that School will be closed to all pupils in Key Stage 3 and we recommend they spend part of the day completing tasks online, in iDeer or in software like MyMaths. This will not affect their attendance record.

While our normal timetable will be suspended, we propose to open to pupils in Key Stage 4 who wish to come into School to use our facilities for supervised independent study. We would strongly recommend pupils take advantage of this opportunity, especially as it will help them revise for their mock examinations taking place currently and their actual GCSE Exams in English, Science and Geography in January 2012.

Furthermore, teachers in School who would have been scheduled to teach pupils in Key Stage 4 will be available for one to one or small group tuition. To aid our planning I would be grateful if you could email my PA, Allison Boucher on enquiries@deerparkschool.net to let us know if your son or daughter intends to come into school so that we can advise the staff who will be in school accordingly. Those who do not attend are encouraged to use iDeer, in particular our ‘one stop’ revision pages and other online resources recommended by their teachers including MyMaths and GCSE Pod to help them learn independently.

Please note there will be no dedicated school transport serving Cirencester Deer Park School on Wednesday 30 November.

I assure you that our decision to ‘close’ has not been taken lightly and many of my colleagues taking action do so with great reluctance. We apologise for the inconvenience this may cause.

Cirencester Deer Park School will re-open as normal on Thursday 1 December 2011.