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Dear Parents,

Those of you who have been watching the news will not be surprised to learn that we will be moving to Home-Based Learning (HBL) for most students and teachers, beginning Wednesday, 19 May. We received confirmation of this from the Committee for Private Education (CPE) at noon. 

HBL is expected to continue until the end of the heightened alert period on 13 June, but we will obviously respond to prevailing measures from the authorities. This brings us to the last week of school, so we will be monitoring this closely and will keep you updated. We very much hope that students will have time together in person before the end of the school year.

Principals will be writing with details of what this means in each school section, but below is some general information that is relevant for all.

School

Arrangements

All
  • We will be writing with more information on the HBL programme. Teachers will be monitoring student engagement with HBL and will contact parents if they see any issues.
  • You can view IT requirements and information on how to log on to our systems here.
  • There will be no 4.30pm bus tomorrow, Tuesday, as Activities have been paused for the week. As shared over the weekend, we will be in touch regarding plans for the Activities programme (including any potential refunds) in the coming days.

Infant School
(K1–G1)
  • Wednesday, 19 May is a student-free day. This is because the combination of on-campus and HBL take time to arrange (see below).
  • Local preschools are allowed to remain open, and our Infant Schools (K1 to Grade 1) will also remain open, from 8am to 2pm each day from Thursday, 20 May to Monday, 13 June, during this heightened alert period.
  • There will be no Activities on campus after school.
  • Families who want to keep their children at home can participate in a limited HBL programme. Principals will send further details.

Junior School
(G2–5)
  • Wednesday, 19 May is a student-free day. This is because the combination of on-campus and HBL take time to arrange and subject-specific teachers are shared across Infant and Junior schools.
  • The full HBL programme will begin on Thursday, 20 May.
  • Devices will be sent home today and you will be asked to sign an online agreement form if you have not already done so.
  • Principals will send further details.

Middle School
(G6–8)
  • HBL will commence on Wednesday, 19 May. 
  • This first day will be asynchronous, which means students will not all follow their timetable exactly. 
  • More information will come from Principals.

High School
(G9–12)
  • (I)GCSE and IBDP exams are allowed to proceed on campus as planned, with enhanced Safety Measures.
  • Internal exams in Grade 9, 10 and 11 will also continue. On Dover, these will be on campus as they are beginning this week, while on East, where internal Grade 9 and 10 exams don’t begin for another few weeks, we will need to make sure we can do so within the stated safety measures. If necessary, East will run the Grade 9 and 10 exams remotely (Grade 11 exams are already completed). 
  • High School students can come on campus to complete Internal Assessments, if necessary. Details will come from the Principal or Head of Department.
  • We will be going ahead with what we had planned for our graduating class and Principals will be in touch with further details.

Those families who were here during Circuit Breaker last year will remember our HBL programme. Over the last months you may have seen media reports about learning gaps for students in some countries. Initial analysis of this year's ISA data indicates that our students did not experience a negative impact on their reading, writing or mathematics scores. In fact, the ISA results from this year's Grade 8, who experienced circuit breaker, were slightly above the results from the previous, normal year. Individual student reports will be coming home to you next week, but it is reassuring to know that academic learning has not been negatively impacted. Nevertheless, we know that students do miss out on in-person time with friends and we remind you that, while we have all been asked to keep inter-mingling to a minimum, there is still the possibility of outdoor exercise and short one-to-one time with friends. 

Thank all of you for your resilience and patience as we work through this together. 

Yours sincerely,

Nick Alchin, Head of UWCSEA East
Elizabeth Bray, Head of UWCSEA Dover