UTC Oxfordshire Newsletter
17th December 2020
Dear all
What an unforgettable year for all sorts of reasons. We have plenty to celebrate and I feel immensely proud to be leading this wonderful school with its dedicated staff and students. Thank you all for your support over this challenging year.
Today was Christmas jumper day and instead of money, you were very generous with your donations to our local bank - you can see some of the food donate in the image above. A huge thank you to all of of you for sending in so much food and to Vicki (Head of Year 10) for dropping this all off.
This afternoon we had some virtual and whole school assemblies where students were celebrating their achievements. As well as department nominations , we had the Leadership Team Awards.
Congratulations to:
- Libby Grace-Henderson
- Koppany Bodoni
- Emily Doy
- Toby Collias
- Emma Moroney
- Jasper Gilmore
- Cameron Bruce
- Praise Kujore
- Cristina Reid
All of the above students have shown excellent employability skills across the year and are committed to their studies. Each had a personal commendation and certificate presented during the Virtual Whole school assembly via their tutors.
We are sad to be saying goodbye to Richard Hurrell, Jen Edwards, and Judi Checketts who are moving on to pastures new - we are sure you will join us in thanking them for all their hard work and wishing them all the best for the future.
UK Bebras Challenge Update
We are please to announce the Gold Award winners were: Ryan Murphy, Koppani Bodoni, Riley Robson, Alex Morgan, Silas Harvey
For those of you would like an engineering challenge over the Christmas break please take a look at the Christmas Challenge from the Institution of Engineering and Technology link here and video below
Wishing you a restful winter break.
Stay safe
With good wishes
Sam and all at UTC Oxfordshire
RETURNING IN JANUARY
You may have seen the latest government announcement about a staggered return to school in January for secondary students and information about mass testing in schools. Please be reassured that we will communicate any changes to the start of term on Monday 4 January when we will have a considered plan in place.
Please make sure you check your email on the evening of Monday 4th to ensure you have all the relevant information.
ARKWRIGHT SCHOLARSHIP
Our student, Jamie Cockburn, has received his certificate recognising the Arkwright Engineering Scholarships!
The Arkwright Engineering Scholarships programme is the most prestigious scholarship scheme of its type in the UK and Jamie was selected from 300 students to receive this.
He will have support through valuable hands-on-work experience, support for his curriculum project and a personal mentor for the next two academic years.
We are delighted for Jamie and look forward to watching him progress.
IMPORTANT - COVID REPORTING DURING THE CHRISTMAS BREAK
COVID over the break 18th December 2020 – 23rd December 2020
As you will be aware, all schools have been asked to continue the Covid-19 'Track and Trace' function for the first six days of the Christmas break.
Should any student be unfortunate enough to contract covid 19 over the break please follow these instructions:
On receipt of a positive test result only and where students have developed symptoms within 48 hours of being in school, please report this positive test result to school on our dedicated Track and Trace email address covid@UTCoxfordshire.org.uk.
Please advise when the symptoms first came on and which students, outside of the lessons, your student had close contact with on Wednesday 16th and Thursday 17th December in the e-mail. The e-mail address will be monitored up to 23rd December twice a day and anyone who is a positive contact to a case will be notified by email by either Alice or myself. You will be asked to self-isolate for 10 days from the date of the positive case.
After this period, all cases are to be reported to the NHS Track and Trace team via their dedicated website: https://contact-tracing.phe.gov.uk.
ELP
Year 12 students set up Christmas enterprise businesses over the last term and yesterday had their trade stand day.