Although numbers of students are significantly lower than usual, with only about 10% of our school population attending for in-person lesson, our growing number of Year 7 students enjoyed an assembly on Tuesday morning led by Acting Assistant Headteacher Mr O’Kelly.

Taking the opportunity to physically distance even more in our large Main Hall, they nevertheless enjoyed gathering as a Year group bubble and the sense of community that it brought.

With the theme of the week being resilience, Mr O’Kelly talked about the need to cultivate adaptability and drew from the sporting world’s term of ‘bouncebackability’!

Students have had to adapt to a significantly different educational landscape this year but the vast majority are doing brilliantly. Our Year 7 critical worker and more vulnerable children are really enjoying being in school, supporting one another in this challenging time.

Those at home are also embracing the new challenges of live lessons and are demonstrating great resilience.

The online video of the assembly has been shared with all CDCs so make sure you get to listen to it – it was inspiring and very apt for these times. It included an amazingly throught-provoking contribution from one of Mr O’Kelly’s university colleagues, an NHS frontline worker called Tony. He provided an inspiring message related to the theme of resilience and gave us hope for the future.