Dear Parents/Carers,

It is almost time for us to sign off for the summer holidays after a school year of uncertainty and adaptations due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

Over the past two weeks when we as a school have been clearly affected by the virus, I have seen a willingness to come together and support which has helped hugely in dealing with the ever changing picture.  Your flexibility when asked to collect your child at short notice and understanding of what we have had to do has been remarkable.  I am so proud of our pupils too. They demonstrate such maturity and resilience in the face of significant changes and they must be commended for this.  We haven’t been able to give them anything like the events or activities that they would normally experience, but they understand why and simply are a credit to this school.

We are planning for a year (2021-22) when St Mary’s can re-emerge even stronger, whether it be in the classroom on the sports field or through worshipping together as a Catholic community.  We will still have to be cautious and at the time of writing, we don’t know what infection rates will look like in September, but that won’t stop us doing all we can to ensure our pupils have as rich and full an experience as possible.

We look forward to welcoming our new Y7 cohort who will no doubt be excited at making the step up to High School.  We will do all we can to make this a smooth transition, as they too will have had a difficult year.  Mrs Walton has been visiting Y6s in their schools and I know she is looking forward to having them with us at St Mary’s.  A good number of them will attend summer school, which is a great way to get to know the surroundings, some teachers and make new friends!.

Prior to returning in September, we have been informed that our pupils will need to be tested on site before they are able to start the new term.  Please keep an eye on your parentmails because we will shortly send out dates at the end of the holidays, when your child will be required to come in and take a test.  Different year groups will have designated days and it should be a relatively swift experience but more details to follow in due course.

It is at this time of year that we say goodbye to colleagues who are either retiring or moving on to pastures new.  I would like to thank Mrs Bray who is retiring, for her tremendous service to St Mary’s both in the RE Department and the wider spiritual life of the school – I know she has plans for her retirement and I wish her well with these.  A number of temporary staff are moving on and I would like to thank Miss Roper and Mr Loader for their work in PE and other areas of the school.  Miss Davies will take up a Teaching Assistant post in Monmouth and Louisa Andrews our Chaplain is also moving on.  Thank you to all of these colleagues for their work and commitment, and I will write to you in September to introduce the new faces who are joining our staff team.

I hope that you and your families get to have a break over the summer.  It has been a challenging period which has had an impact on us all in some way.  We look forward to a new school year together and thank you once again for your ongoing support.

Yours faithfully

Stuart Wetson