Dear Students, Families, Staff and Governors,
The weather has been extremely cold this week and I hope that you are all managing to keep warm. I have attached a link to the Hampshire and Isle of Wight Fire Service who are offering advice on keeping warm and safe this winter: https://www.hantsfire.gov.uk/safety/cost-of-living
I am liaising with The Living Well and Early Help Service who are interested in parking their Mobile Hub on site for two afternoons so that family members can drop in for a chat / support.
“The Living Well and Early Help Service is a Council and NHS funded project specifically set up to support people on the Isle of Wight to stay safe, strong, well, resilient, in control, independent and connected with their local community.
We are focussed on identifying and providing support for people before they reach crisis and working with communities to build capacity to provide that support.
We will support people to look for practical solutions wherever possible and focus on what the people can do for themselves using their skills and experience rather than automatically looking for a service response.
By spending time identifying these strengths, passions and capabilities of individuals, services and places, we support communities to help themselves and create local solutions”.
I hope that many of you will find this useful and I will confirm dates as soon as possible.
As you are probably aware, many unions have voted to take strike action including one of the teaching unions. I will keep you updated as to the impact this may have on St George’s.
I would like to advise you that our whole school attendance percentage is currently 88.1%, which is above average for special schools. However, it would be amazing if we could reach and sustain a percentage over 90% for the remainder of the year. I have added information about when you should keep students at home and when they should come to school. Obviously, some of our students have complex health conditions and we are very proud of how well the majority of students attend school despite the challenges that they face.
For our students who are considering leaving St George’s for the next stage of their education I would like to remind you about the Moving on Morning on Tuesday 21st February at 10.00am. This will be held in the main school hall. We look forward to welcoming you to the session that should be very informative.
I had the pleasure of being served lunch by some of our Sixth Form Hospitality Students last Friday; Emily, Lou and Jonathan. The food was delicious, tuna pasta bake followed by apple crumble but the service we received was even better. Thank you to the options group who came up with the menu and the suggestion of a meal to thank our guests from Liz Earle for securing our Hair and Beauty donation for another year. Once again, St George’s students were a credit to our school and their families.
I have also sent in a report / photo to the County Press celebrating our Ofsted Inspection Outcome so please look out for it over the next few weeks.
Best wishes
Steff Gleeson
Headteacher