Information on moving schools coming soon

Prior to the Easter holidays it was announced that parents and carers would need to wait until the final term of this academic year to be told which school their child will join.

This work is progressing and parents and carers will receive letters confirming this information within the next week, Education, Sport & Culture have said.

Last month the States decided that reforms to secondary education should be subject to further review.

The States agreed that ESC should review four models of education and report back to the States early next year.

Following this, ESC confirmed that uniforms currently worn in States-run secondary schools will remain unchanged for the 2020/21 academic year.

President of ESC Deputy Matt Fallaize explained that when the States previously agreed to change the model of secondary eduction, it was announced that uniforms would change for at least some students from September 2020.

'Following the recent decision of the States to carry out a further review of models, it makes no sense to continue with uniform changes,' he said.

'The best thing is for current uniforms to remain as they are for the academic year.

'We are working with retailers who will do everything they can to have adequate stocks of existing uniforms, but as with much of life at the moment we are mindful that supplies may be affected by Covid-19.'

Deputy Fallaize also thanked parents and carers for supporting schools with distance learning since it was introduced last week as schools were closed to the majority of students.

School workers have been grateful that most parents have engaged constructively with their child's teacher and remained supportive while teething issues are worked through.

Deputy Fallaize was pleased that on the whole the first ten days of distance learning were successful.

'Rolling out something so new to thousands of children at quite short notice was never going to be without challenges, but distance learning seems to be working well for most children, parents and schools.

'We don't yet know when schools will reopen and until then we have to make sure we are doing the best we can for students through distance learning.'

Schools have sent surveys to parents and carers and the Education Office asks that they are filled out as feedback is so important.