Dear Parents and Students, Update as of 1640 on Monday 27 April 2020   I hope you and your loved ones are well.  I’ve really enjoyed engaging with some of our students online over the past few days.  I hope your daughter is having greater interactivity too.  We are all missing each other so much but in times of adversity comes great creativity.   It was lovely and poignant to join form time for 8GA and hear their highs and lows.  I also enjoyed a live Q & A session with Year 13 on Friday, and will be doing the same with Year 11 this Friday.  Today’s Sixth Form assembly was equally good.  I was so pleased to hear that Year 13 are organising live revision sessions with Year 12.  Thank you Year 13. And what’s more, JCG Sixth Form have teamed up with VCJ to do a charity fundraiser.  The genus of the idea is Sam Moore’s, Head Boy at VCJ, and he with Mimi in Year 13 have set the Sixth Form the challenge to run the distance from Jersey's Nightingale Hospital to the Nightingale Hospital in London and back (approx 600km) over 3 days (the 6th, 7th and 8th of May).  A team of Sixth Form runners, 2 people each hour, will be running each day from 7am-8pm in their local area (of course, only during their allocated daily exercise and following social distancing).  A fundraising page is being set up, and the two organisations who will receive the funds are Caring Cooks (caringcooksofjersey.com) and Brightly Jersey (brightly.je).  I will include the link to the fundraising page once it is live.  This is an entirely student led initiative and the response from the Sixth Form has been great; people really want to get involved and do something positive for the community at this time.   What do we know?

• It is reported that Year 9 appear VERY excited about their new timetable.  It is wonderful and unprecedented for Year 9 to be excited in the summer term!  Well done girls.
• Students are completing work at varying rates; some are all over it and working very fast, submitting work in a variety of ways and keeping teachers happy. Others are struggling somewhat. It is important to note that sometimes SMHW isn’t updating straight away and you may need to log out and log back in again.  Some students are totally overwhelmed by the amount of work and it is taking them far longer than the 2-3 hours a week that they would normally have.   If this is the case for your daughter please remind her to spend the allotted time completing tasks and then to send it to her teacher with a message saying that she has spent x amount of time on the task.
• We have asked our teachers to differentiate between ‘core’ tasks (i.e. the ones students MUST do) and ‘extension’ tasks (ones that they should do if they have time). This will especially help those who are trying to catch up, to see the wood for the trees.
• If a student owes work, these are the steps we will take: 1) Message the student on SMHW, 2) Send an email outlining what is due, 3) Forward that email on to the parent to let you know, 4) If we still hear nothing the teacher will contact the tutor and Head of School for support.
• Please remember, if you have any concerns either about your daughter’s wellbeing or learning please do contact your daughter’s tutor.
• GCSE and A level grading process: parents of students expecting exam grades this summer will have received a letter from me today setting out our process for gathering evidence for a centre assessed grade.  Please remember you cannot discuss this process with teachers.
• Autumn term planning: we have started looking at the Autumn term and have made the decision to not allow any trips during the term other than the planned DoE expedition.  Off island trips are some of the highlights for our students and staff but we need to be pragmatic at this time.
• HPV vaccinations for Year 8: Family Nursing were due to be in college this month to deliver Part 2 of the HPV Vaccination Programme. As they have not been able to do this, the current plan is that they will do this in September.
• Miss David has sent to all parents her excellent PSHE newsletter.  The guidance within it is relevant to all of us and I would encourage you to read it with you daughter.
• Monday 4^th May and Friday 8^th May are Bank Holidays so no work will be given or be expected to be done on those days.  Time to switch the screen off and do something creative with toilet rolls (see today’s JCG tv).

  Parental Survey: Thank you to all those parents who have completed the survey.  If you haven’t yet done soon, the link to the Parental survey is here:  https://www.smartsurvey.co.uk/s/JCGparent2020/. Please note that this survey will close on Tuesday 5^th May and we hope to publish the results before the end of the Summer term.   Can you bake cakes?   Silly question.  Of course you can!  This morning Mr Lewis visited a group providing free meal deliveries, predominantly for some of the 3000 Romanian people living and working in Jersey, mainly supporting our agricultural industry, but also to non-qualified people who find themselves in financial hardships.  These people are often the invisible minority in our island. The group are providing over 80 cooked meals a day for this week and next, delivered to people who contact them. It is organised by the honorary Romanian consul in Jersey. What they would like are cakes (they do not have the facilities or time to bake cakes) and some cheerful hand-made/hand-drawn cards (for example, "I hope you enjoy your meal"). The cakes can be cup-cakes or full sized cakes which they will slice and add to the meals. They can be delivered (as can the cards) to the kitchen at St. Luke's church during the day.  There is a car park at the side of the church and a passage-way behind the church which leads to the kitchen. As we all know, JCG loves cake so I’m sure our students will contribute.   And finally, a huge thank you to Nikita in Year 11 who today dropped off 100 homemade face masks, one each for our staff.  The kindness of our College family is unbelievable and life affirming.   Take care. Yours, Carl Howarth Principal