Dear Boarding Parents,

Thank you to all parents who wrote to the College directly with your ideas on how we could respond to Prime Minister Lee’s announcement that the circuit breaker is now extended until 1 June. As you can imagine, there were many different perspectives, from suggestions that we radically alter the school calendar, to requests to keep it exactly the same in order to provide continuity for families and fit in with their current planning.

The outcome is especially important for our Boarding community, so we write now with a summary, as follows:

• We will continue with Home-based Learning throughout the extended circuit breaker period. Students will be able to access the remote learning programme from wherever they are. This ensures that students are occupied and engaged with learning during the period when they cannot leave their homes. It also avoids any disruption of the good habits and routines that students are forming. We have had extensive feedback from parents, students and teachers on what is working well and where we can work towards improvements with Home-based Learning, and we will be making changes accordingly. Our aim will be to ensure the right balance of synchronous learning (where a teacher is working directly with students) and asynchronous learning (where students are working alone or in separate groups). Further information will come from school Principals and the Directors of Teaching and Learning.
• We will end the 2019/2020 school year on 19 June, as planned. This means that all boarders will be expected to leave the Boarding House by 20 June at the latest. Since the circumstances of each of our boarders is so individual, Boarding House staff will be in touch directly with families to talk about the plan for each student.

Our conversations further focused on the current reality for our parents, most particularly the economic challenges many are facing. Therefore, in addition to the ‘fee freeze’ and creation of a Financial Assistance Programme (FAP) for our families communicated in our previous ‘first response’ email, we are giving a $1,000 credit per student to all fee-paying families. Families of students who are leaving the College will have the amount refunded to them directly. This is in addition to any adjustment to Boarding House costs based on individual circumstances. The Finance Team will be in touch directly with families with further details.

In the last few months, our community has responded to problems with creativity, purpose and resilience. We are mindful that the uncertainty of this extraordinary time is especially challenging for our boarding families and we thank you for your continued support. 

Yours sincerely,

Elizabeth Bray, Head of UWCSEA Dover
Graham Silverthorne, Head of UWCSEA East