12 January 2024
Dear parents and carers,
As we come to the end of our first fortnight back after the Christmas break, I have a number of updates to bring to your attention. In this letter:
· Welcoming new staff
· FNN early closure
· Student reception
· Reminder of prior consent to leave school in cases of adverse weather closures
· Site signage and safety
Welcoming new staff
We are delighted to welcome several new members of staff, joining us at the start of this term.
· Mrs Schollar is our new attendance officer, working within our safeguarding team
· Mrs Rowland is our specialist business studies and tourism teacher
· Mr Northover is a specialist Dance teacher in our SPACE sixth form centre
· Mr Holmes has joined us as deputy head of Maths
· Mr Lall-Sachdev is our new assistant principal in charge of behaviour, culture and ethos
· Mrs Onslow, whilst not new to Monkton Wood, has secured a permanent post with us as assistant principal in charge of teaching, learning and assessment
· We also have Ms Pearce joining us in Maths, as a potential trainee teacher through the ‘Step Into Teaching’
FNN early closure
The next ‘Federation Network Night’ for our staff is taking place on Wednesday 31 January. As a reminder, this is the termly professional development event that sees all of our teaching staff gather in subject networks with their counterparts from the other CLF secondary schools, to review the curriculum, moderate marking and receive training from subject experts. On 31 January, Monkton Wood will close to students at 2:30pm, to allow our staff to travel to their network meetings. Our professional services and support staff will remain in school as usual, so if you would prefer your child to remain under our supervision until 3:30pm, please complete the online form, linked here.
Student reception
We are taking steps to improve the experience for visitors arriving in Monkton Wood Academy. As many of you will know, our main reception area is very small, and queues can quickly form. Parents of existing students can help us manage this by using our Student Reception for routine jobs such as dropping off forgotten PE kits and collecting students leaving for orthodontist appointments. Student reception can now be found to the right of the main reception entrance, as you approach from the car park. It is signposted and has its own entry buzzer. Student reception is staffed by Mrs Tekay and the pastoral professional services team.
Reminder of prior consent to leave school in the event of an early closure
If you have not yet completed the prior consent form for possible early closures, it is still available on this link. The letter explaining our contingency plans for adverse weather is still available on our website, and further details of our learning plans in the event of total closure will follow shortly.
Site signage and safety
If you have been onto the school site in the past week, you will have seen the installation of our new large signage on the street facing sides of the school. We have also planned for the renewal of the street markings in our car park. In order to keep our driveway as safe as possible, we respectfully ask parents to use the designated parking bays when collecting children, and not to linger in the hatched areas. We will be moving the parking bays for the school minibuses, to create more space on the pavements for pedestrians and to prevent students from stepping out into the driveway as they leave site at the end of the day. Please could parents take extra care to not block the minibuses in, and to allow them space to reverse out on their way to fixtures and events.
As always, we thank you for your continued support for your child’s learning and for our academy.
Yours faithfully,
Mrs H Jones
Principal
