Week Beginning 1 June 2020 - Christopher Short, DCIS Principal

Dear DCIS Parents,

We have had a very successful four days back on the campus with a small number of our Year 10, Year 12 and Pathway 4 children. It is delightful to see the campus back to its intended use and I am grateful to our cleaning contractors and our facility staff for working so hard to make the campus ready for our main return tomorrow.

Thank you to all Secondary students who participated in the Endurance House Challenge, the form to register your distance is open until tomorrow noon. Year 6 enjoyed their third Year 7 transition day which, while a very different format, gave the Year 6 children an authentic introduction of their life in Secondary School. We held our second online Parents Evening last week as well. Some elements of the arrangements we have had to make over the last 2 months may turn out to be improvements and Parents’ Evenings may be one of these.

We have had some inspirational creativity over the last few weeks and much of it is shared on our Facebook and Instagram page. The online On the Dot and At the Splat music recitals (except possibly one guitar concert by me!) have been fantastic. The big choir performance, with over 90 of our Key Stage 2 students signing as a choir is really worth looking at. The Secondary Drama Department held their first ever Virtual Drama Festival.

A lot has changed since we last had students and staff on the campus. When we started temperature checking back in February we had a long conversation about how our youngest students would feel about this. Within a week we had children lifted their fringe to speed up the process. Mask wearing has gone from an activity that was not encouraged by the Government to one that is now mandatory. Again this seemed very strange at first but now, a few short weeks in seems second nature. Safe Distancing outside of schools was just being introduced as we stopped being in school and now it is the norm and the new phrase on everyone’s lips. The only parallel I can think of is the way we now wouldn’t ever think of setting off in a car without our seat belt on whereas only a few years ago seat belt wearing was still patchy and not ingrained in our way of thinking. The DCIS community has been through the challenges of QO or self-isolation then straight into a holiday as the Circuit Breaker started and on into the challenges of learning and working at home. We’re not quite back to normal but it is a good step in the right direction and I know staff can’t wait to see their classes either tomorrow or next Monday. The Senior Leadership Team of the school filmed their version of Rudyard Kipling’s poem If. Elements of the poem are now quite dated but the message is as true now as it was when Kipling wrote the poem over 120 years ago.

There are some significant differences to the way we are obliged to manage the campus over the next four weeks so I would be grateful for the support of all parents. One key difference is that we are not allowed any parents on site at all. Parents will need to drop their children off and pick them up as indicated in the guides sent our last week. Parents dropping their children or picking them up by car must not leave their car. Please do not be offended if one of our staff reminds of this!

We look forward to welcoming more students onto the campus tomorrow.