A Message from Principal, Mr Martin
The first six weeks of 2022 have gone by in a flash.
This has certainly been a challenging half term for schools across the country and Samuel Whitbread has been no different. With over 20 staff members off school with Covid at one point and, at its peak, over 150 students off school following a positive Covid result. Last week, we had to take the difficult decision to ask Year 12 students to work independently at home, to create the capacity for staff to cover lessons in Years 9, 10 and 11. I’m pleased to say the number of student cases is declining and this may be due to the second round of vaccinations; the number of positive cases amongst staff has also reduced.
On a more positive note, it has been fantastic to see students performing in drama productions this half term and I would like to commend everyone involved in the KS4 play ‘DNA’, which was well received by an audience of parents and friends. It's so important for the drama GCSE students to have the opportunity to perform in front of a live audience and they clearly enjoyed being back on stage. After the break KS5 students are performing ‘100’.
This week also saw the unveiling of the play ‘Whitbread v Colston’ written, directed, and filmed by the English, Drama, Film and Media departments. It’s a great resource for schools wishing to debate the issue of statues commemorating people associated with the slave trade and will be available on our website once it has been trialed by Robert Bloomfield Academy pupils.
We have even managed to run some trips this half term. Firstly, the A Level geographers finally managed to get away on their field studies trip to Dorset, enabling them to complete a key component of their course; previously this has been postponed twice due to Covid. Secondly, the food studies students managed to visit a local restaurant to observe a real kitchen in action during lunchtime service. These are certainly signs of things starting to get back to normal and we look forward to future events.
We have had another fantastic half term of sport with some impressive results in netball, football and rugby. In Rugby 7s, we dominated a U16 tournament last weekend, which included many of the strongest schools in the country. Last Friday, ex-student Tom Litchfield scored for England in the U20 Six Nations game against Scotland. He plays again on Friday against Italy.