Dear parent/carer,
The GCSE awards evening is an important date in our calendar and is another fantastic opportunity to acknowledge and celebrate the many successes of our students, the hard work and expertise of our staff, the support from our governors and significantly, to allow parents an opportunity to see their child collect their hard-earned certificates and awards. This, combined with an inspirational guest speaker delivering a message for all Year 11 leavers alongside contributions from the Chair of Governors, makes for a very positive evening that we continue to value.
However, this year has also posed some significant challenges, partly because of ongoing covid transmission in school and in the community but also because of the current condition of the sports hall and subsequently, the access to it. We recognised that we would have to make some significant compromises to the quality of the set-up and therefore the experience of all those attending. We considered a wide range of alternatives, from running a virtual event to hiring an external venue. However, in truth, we didn’t feel they would result in the desired outcome.
Having considered all options extensively, we have regrettably decided to not run the evening in its traditional format. Instead, we are creating an awards evening booklet that seeks to celebrate students’ time in school and their many academic and personal achievements, providing a small keepsake to remember their time with us at Haslingden High School. They will receive these, along with their certificates and will be presented with any faculty/school awards that they would have received on the evening in person in school (where they have continued into our sixth form) or by prior arrangement.
We are genuinely sorry that we are not able to facilitate the usual evening but we hope you understand the reasons which have led to this decision. We are still keen to allow events such as the school show and the school concert to take place this term but have made the decision in relation to GCSE awards evening as there are additional limiting factors and also because we feel we can offer an alternative this year that still provides a positive outcome for our students. We know that evenings such as these, extra-curricular offers and school trips all combine to offer rich and exciting opportunities for our students and we will continue to do all we can to ensure that these take place in the coming weeks and months.
We hope that you understand our decision making on this matter and we look forward to seeing you in school for the variety of events that are planned throughout this academic year.
Best wishes
Russell Clarke, Headteacher