LATEST UPDATES
LATEST UPDATES RE PREPARATIONS FOR SEPTEMBER 2017
WEEK BEGINNING 10TH JULY 2017
Letter to Parents / Carers from Mr Hall
12th July 2017
"We are upgrading our catering payment system over the summer to help support the arrival of the additional students in September. As part of this, we will be moving away from the use of dinner cards and we will be using a biometric, cashless payment system, which means that your child can pay, by using their finger to touch a keypad when purchasing food in school. In addition to this, students will also be issued with a pin number to use if there are ever any technical issues.
You can continue to use Schoolcomms to top up your child’s account or students can do this in school as they currently do with cash, information on this is on our website at: www.dchs-alnwick.org and following the link from the Welcome homepage.
To allow your child to use the biometric system we need you to complete the opt-in form below and return it no later than 6 September 2017. Please note that the system takes a ‘photograph’ of your child’s finger, not a fingerprint.
We will arrange for the finger print image to be taken to set up the students during the first few days of the new term, please ensure that your children have cash with them until we notify you that we have completed this.
We have provided more information on the system we are using on our website; please again follow the link from the Welcome homepage for more detail."
Also provided below
"Yours faithfully,
Maurice Hall
Headteacher"
WEEK BEGINNING 26TH JUNE 2017
Letter to Parents / Carers from Mr Hall
27th June 2017
"We are writing to advise that work began on building our extension earlier this month and is scheduled to be completed during the summer term of 2018. As you will know, in conjunction with the Local Authority, we plan to accommodate all our students on this site from September 2017. To support this we have secured the lease of quality, purpose built, mobile classrooms. For these to be operational by the beginning of the autumn term we have been advised that work needs to commence immediately to prepare the site for the classrooms to arrive.
We have negotiated with the contractors a programme of works that will keep disturbance to a minimum during weekdays, with the most complex works being kept to the weekends. For the works to commence a temporary road surface will be installed and this will take place on Wednesday 28 June 2017 from 2pm; this will be completed within 6 hours. The works area (the courtyard between corridors B and C) will be fenced off for the duration of the rest of this term and there will be no student access to this area.
We have reassessed our fire evacuation procedures and circulation routes around the school to ensure that students will not be near the works site and we will brief the students tomorrow morning as to the changes.
Thank you for your continued support.
Yours faithfully,
Maurice Hall
Headteacher"
This is also available for download here
WEEK BEGINNING 5TH JUNE 2017
PROGRESS ON THE EXTENSION
Work is about to commence on the extension with a completion date of the Summer term 2018. As said previously the construction of the extension will be kept completely separate to the day to day operations of the school. We will provide regular updates (including photographs) of progress and will also incorporate its construction into student learning opportunities. Part of the initial work, prior to the end of the term, will be the removal of the earth mound.
MOBILE CLASSROOMS ETC
Following further discussions with Northumberland County Council the location of the mobile classrooms has been changed. They will now be located at the rear of the school building in the courtyard area between the ‘fingers’. The reasons for this are linked mainly to the cost of preparing the initial ‘car park’ area for coping with their weight and the potential safety and operational difficulties of having them at the front of the school. We believe this is a better option and expect delivery and setting up of these classrooms during the summer break. The one area we are continuing to explore is the loss of social/play space that this change will generate. More on this once we have considered all our options.
CATERING
We have a meeting with Northumberland County Council on the 8th June. We will update everyone once this meeting has taken place and decisions have been made.
FURTHER UPDATES
Next week we will update you further and include information on such areas as uniform, mobile phones, catering, and Key Stage 3 curriculum; as well as further contact details for key members of staff
