Easter Holidays Newsletter (03/04/2020) 

A word of thanks

The staff team at Havelock Academy would like to thank all parents, carers and students for your support in recent weeks during this difficult time.

We have done our best to keep everyone updated, with information coming through regularly from the David Ross Education Trust, North East Lincolnshire Council, and of course the government.  We have never faced anything like this before, but we will continue to work together throughout this period in order to support each other the best we can.

Our colleagues from Humberside Police have asked us to reinforce the government messages about staying at home, and only leaving your house for very limited reasons:

• Shopping for basic necessities such as food and medicine, as infrequently as possible.
• One form of exercise a day, alone or with members of your own household.
• Any medical needs, or to provide care or help to a vulnerable person.
• Travelling to and from work, but only where this is absolutely necessary and cannot be done from home.

Whilst the academy remains closed for now, we are offering a very restricted opening for a small number of families, in line with the government guidelines, so for the children of front line critical key workers who are not old enough to stay at home, or no other childcare is available, and for some of our vulnerable children. These families were contacted this week to confirm any requests for the Easter holidays. The academy will be completely closed over the bank holiday period, following no requests for this time.

Our colleagues at the David Ross Education Trust (DRET) have been managing the Free School Meals vouchers centrally and have a dedicated email helpline for any enquires or questions about the system.  Vouchers should have been sent out to the email address you have registered with us.  We are also asking all parents to download and use the MCAS app as this is a very efficient way of communicating.

We have set up a page on our website containing all of the key information, including the various email helpline addresses.  This can be found at: https://www.havelockacademy.co.uk/Key-Information-Spring-2020/

This webpage also includes a number of useful links, all collated into one place, including support for online learning, home learning and staying safe online. We will continue to post important information on this page as well as sending out via MCAS. Please check the website and/or MCAS regularly to keep up to date with any changes.   You can also follow us on Facebook and on Twitter @HavelockAcademy .

Teachers will not be setting additional work over the Easter holidays, but students will have work to complete that has been set over the course of this week, and we will also post links to any additional holiday tasks. However, we appreciate that everyone needs a break, so the daily updates of work will restart after the holidays, giving everyone chance for some relaxation. Our welfare check in phone calls and messages will also continue after the holidays. Thank you for the positive feedback about these. Please be aware that these calls will usually come from withheld numbers due to our telephone access offsite. Please do pick up to allow us to check in with you. We are missing the students a great deal and very much look forward to seeing them again when schools reopen.

We will write separately to parents and students in Years 11 and 13 once the government have finalised their plans for the awarding of qualifications for this summer, and at this point we should be in a position to share the mock exam results, which are currently being moderated and collated.

Free School Meals Update: The Government has now published details of the Free School Meal scheme for the period that schools are closed, entitling registered families to vouchers worth £3 per day, with £15 allocated per pupil for a five-day week.

If you are eligible, you should now be receiving these vouchers, but more importantly, if your circumstances change you may become eligible and be able to benefit from the scheme. Please do get in touch if you are having any issues or need help with this in any way. The enquiry email is fsmenquiries@dret.co.uk . Please see our academy website for a link to the government site on eligibility. 

All of the staff wish our families a safe and happy Easter and we look forward to seeing you in the future.

Very best wishes from the staff team at Havelock Academy. #TeamHavelock