Dear Parents/Carer,
It is with deep regret that despite our best endeavours to provide a face to face transition day on the 10th July, I am writing to inform you that we have made the difficult decision to no longer undertake this event face to face.
Following significant consultation with local stakeholders in Medway over the past few days, including many of our feeder Primary schools, the general consensus across Kent and Medway is that face to face transition events should not run due to the growing number of daily Covid cases and the implications they might have on primary bubbles. As you will be aware we were ambitious to host this event for our young people, especially as they have had such an unsettled year. We firmly believe that meeting the staff and experiencing year 7 lessons prior to September would allow our founding cohort to feel more confident walking through our gates on the 1st September. The Medway schools in the Leigh Academies Trust were among the few schools that were still keen to provide such an opportunity, so I hope you will appreciate how disappointed we are that we are having to make this difficult decision.
Having liaised with a number of the local Primary School Headteachers we recognise that many of our feeder schools are hosting residential trips, plays and other events in the last few weeks of term and hosting a face to face transition event may impact on the ability for these to run. I, for one, feel such enrichment activities are invaluable following the limited experiences our young people have had over the past year and as a new Academy in our community it would be deeply regrettable if primary schools had to cancel such opportunities for year 6 due to positive cases following our transition event.
Our fantastic new team of teachers share my disappointment and are still keen to provide a transition opportunity for our young people and we are therefore in the process of planning a virtual transition event on the same day from 9am to 12pm. I feel confident that my committed new team can pull together, despite the limited amount of time, to coordinate such an event using Google Meets, with a timetable of lessons sent out via email for each child to join remotely. This will allow them to still meet some teachers and experience a selection of lessons with a pre-recorded assembly for students to watch, led by myself.
I recognise that a virtual transition event is not what any of us had hoped for but working in collaboration and partnership with our local schools and stakeholders is crucial to the future success of Leigh Academy Rainham in our community and I know you will understand we would not have taken this decision lightly.
Please look forward to further correspondence from us regarding the virtual event we will endeavour to run.
Kind regards
Mrs Millward | Principal
