002_Year8_09Oct2020_ECI

Parent/Carer Bulletin

Friday 9th October 2020

Year 8 

 
Dear Parents and Carers,

Thank you for all of the support and encouragement you are giving your child at home in ensuring
that we all have the safest and most successful start to the school year. We are fast approaching
our first half term break and I hope that your child has enjoyed their first term back at Uckfield
College. It has been wonderful to see the progress that students have been making each week
now they are back in their classrooms with their teachers and to see them back with their friends
during social times.

Over the last two weeks, our student leadership application process has been underway. Student
leadership is a really exciting area of college life, and we have already had many year 8 students
apply for the different roles. The deadline for Year 8 applications is Tuesday 13th October and all
students are strongly encouraged to apply. All the information and application forms can be found
under the ‘leadership’ topic on the Year 8 Google Classroom. The different roles available are:
Form Rep (two per mentor group); College Council (two students from the year group); Prefect
(five students from across the college per prefect team). Students are able to apply for multiple
roles.

Kind regards,

Mrs Elsden
Year 8 Director of Year

NOTICES AND PREVIOUSLY SHARED INFORMATION:

Uniform Clarification

Dr Marten shoes with yellow threading​ are not​ acceptable school footwear under
the College Uniform Policy

All visitors to the college must provide contact details to
reception as part of the track and trace system. Also, all
visitors have to wear face masks along with all students.

Well done to all the students who are following the new
COVID protocols so well and ensuring they have their
masks on at all times when walking in corridors.

Students who do not have a mask by Monday 21st
September will receive a sanction unless they are exempt from wearing one and have a GP letter.

Covid-19 related student absence - A quick reference guide for parents

Please see attached information

Virtual Home Safety Visits and FREE Smoke Alarms available from East Sussex Fire and Rescue
Service

In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, the East Sussex Fire and Rescue Service is able to offer virtual Home
Safety Visits.
East Sussex Fire and Rescue Service is committed to keeping residents safe – this includes supporting families
to reduce the risk of fire in the home, and how to respond to a fire in the unfortunate event that this occurs.
This includes a telephone risk assessment where we can talk to you about the fire risk in your home, after
which we may:

● Post you further information leaflets AND / OR
● Post you smoke alarms to fit yourself (if you don’t have adequate working alarms) OR
● If the risk is high and no one in your home is able to fit a smoke alarm, we will take protective

precautions and fit a smoke alarm for you in your home.

If you would like to find out more about a Home Safety Visit, you can either:
● Call us on 0800 177 7069 , or;

● Complete and return a H​ ome Safety Visit Request Form,​ which should be sent to
[email protected]

You can also contact us on behalf of a friend or relative, but we ask that you get their permission first and let
them know that we will ask them a number of questions.
We also have lots of information and tips on keeping safe at home on our website, including leaflets in
different languages. Please click see h​ ttps://www.esfrs.org/your-safety/safer-homes/,​ for further information.

Attendance expectations
The Government have stated that:
From the start of the autumn term 2020 student attendance is mandatory and the usual rules on
attendance will apply, including:

● parents’ duty to ensure that their child of compulsory school age attends regularly at the school
where the child is a registered pupil

● schools’ responsibilities to record attendance and follow up absence
● schools have the ability to issue sanctions, including fixed penalty notices, in line with local

authorities’ codes of conduct
Please note that a student needs to attend school (be physically in the College building or at an approved
alternative provision) to gain an attendance mark, working from home (via Google Classroom for example)
will be recorded as an absence.
However, if a student is absent from school due to official public health advice, this non-attendance will not
count as an absence (authorised or unauthorised) for statistical purposes. Therefore parents/carers are not
penalised for following official public health advice in relation to Coronavirus.
Covid Symptom Tracker
Further information regarding Covid-19 symptoms has been released by Professor Tim Spector, Professor of
Genetic Epidemiology at King’s College London. This information is from study of the data from the Covid
Symptom Tracker app (below), which currently over 4,000,000 people are using daily.
We recommend you download this app to help you identify any symptoms and to support research into the
virus.

Available in App Store or via this link: ​https://covid.joinzoe.com/
The latest symptom information reported by Professor Spector is:
80% of all age groups have reported severe headaches and fatigue. If you do not have these symptoms
then you are highly unlikely to have Covid-19.
If you have a runny nose, congestion and sneezing then you are highly ​unlikely​ to have Covid-19.

Loss of sense of smell, cough and shortness of breath are often not symptoms for children.

The main symptoms of high temperature, new continuous cough and loss or change of smell are in the
main relevant to the 18-65 age group.

Department for Education coronavirus (COVID-19) helpline

The Department for Education coronavirus (COVID-19) helpline is available to answer questions about
coronavirus (COVID-19) relating to education and children’s social care. Staff, parents and young people
can contact this helpline by calling:
Phone: 0800 046 8687
Opening hours:
Monday to Friday from 8am to 6pm
Saturday and Sunday from 10am to 4pm

Covid-19 related student absence - ​A quick reference guide for parents

Regarding high temperatures in some of the learning rooms​ - please be assured that we are aware
of the problem and we are working hard to resolve it with the DfE, the architect, the builders and the
company responsible for the heating and air flow system.
Fire regulations designed to stop the spread of a fire between adjacent buildings has meant that we cannot
have opening windows on the South side of that section of the new building and we cannot avoid fire
regulations.
The new buildings do not have air conditioning. The design, materials, insulation, proportion of glazing,
solar shields, airflow and heating system etc are all supposed to ensure that temperatures inside a public
building like this are within reasonable limits. It is apparent that this isn't working for some rooms in the
new building.
We will continue to seek solutions and we will do everything we can to resolve this issue.

Chromebook Surgery
The IT Services Team will be running a drop-in 'Chromebook Surgery' every break and lunch to address
issues students may be having with their chromebook. For example, if students can not connect to the
college wifi or require a password reset they should visit one of these sessions at the earliest opportunity.
Chromebook Surgery takes place in AG15 and students must follow the following schedule as part of covid
control measures:

Tuesday (break and lunch): Year 11 only
Wednesday (break and lunch): Year 10 only
Thursday (break and lunch): Year 9 only
Friday (break and lunch): Year 8 only

Specific covid control measures:
Students would be expected to line up (keeping suitable social distancing from the staff), place their device
on the table and step away when it is being used/reviewed by the member of staff. PPE, including
disposable gloves, will be worn by IT Services staff handling students' chromebooks and these will be
replaced after using each device.

Barnardo’s ‘See, Hear, Respond’ service
See, Hear, Respond is a service provided across England by Barnardo’s and other national and local
community-based organisations in response to the coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak.

See, Hear, Respond, provides support to children, young people and their families who aren’t currently
seeing a social worker or other agency, and who are struggling to cope with the emotional impacts of
coronavirus (COVID-19). See, Hear, Respond will support from pre-birth up to 18 years of age and those
with special educational needs under the age of 25.

See, Hear, Respond will contact every referral made, so no child is missed. Help is available in one or more
of four ways:

● an online hub of support and information
● online counselling and therapy
● face-to-face support for those most affected and at risk of some of today’s most pertinent issues,

such as criminal exploitation, and
● helping children and young people reintegrate back into school
You can access via the ‘See, Hear, Respond’ service self-referral webpage or Freephone 0800 151 7015.

Sussex Uniforms Covid-19 response:
Firstly, thank you everyone for your continued custom during this difficult time.

In response to the current situation with COVID-19 and the government's guidelines we
would like to reassure customers that Sussex Uniforms are ​still open online - please see
attached information.​

Currently we are not experiencing any delays, but with reduced capacity there may be times that orders take a bit
longer, so please ​place your order as early as possible.​

The customer service team are working from home to assist customers and have introduced a new live chat section to
the website in order to assist with any customer questions or queries.

The Sussex Uniforms Team - ​https://www.sussexuniforms.co.uk/

New courses starting in September for Adults with ACRES Learning: Study Maths or English.
Relax, improve or learn a new skill. Paint, exercise, learn a language and more. Courses being
announced soon.

FREE* GCSE English & Maths 1-year intensive courses, Functional Skills English & Maths.
Improve your employability or set a great example to your children and at the same time
better understand their schoolwork.
ESOL (English for Speakers of Other Languages) is another that may interest your parent's whose first language is not
English.

Register interest in any course, just e​ mail​ your​ choice of course to us or call us on 01825 761820 on Tue, Wed or
Thursday 10 am to 3 pm. We will contact you with more details.
Keep an eye on our w​ ebsite​ for the latest information.

* FREE to any eligible learner, who has not previously attained a grade 4/C At GCSE or equivalent

Job Vacancies - s​ ee link to current vacancies page here for both Support staff and Teachers
https://www.uckfield.college/vacancies

DSE Guidance on maintaining healthy posture while working at screens-
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1bX-oKbMPw_uIHF33z9vnVqRWylOQoVGd/view?ts=5e860
11e

Uckfield College Facebook - ​Uckfield College Facebook page

UCTC TWITTER- Follow us on ​Twitter @​ UckfieldCollege

Term dates​ for the Academic years 20/21 & 21/22 - h​ ttp://www.uckfield.college/termdates

Reporting Absences - S​ ee li​ nk to information on Website

Uckfield College Life​ ​- ​June’s Issue

Uckfield College Life will be published once a month. ​We have attached the Newsletter to the title
above - if you wish you can click on the title to see the newsletter. Please e-mail details to Toni
Fletcher, t​ [email protected].​