Urgent Update for Parents/Carers regarding a partial closure of THA Monday 19^th April 2021

Dear Parents/Carers and students,

I am very sorry to inform you that we will need to operate a partial opening of school on Monday due to a critical IT incident.  Regrettably a malware attack affecting Microsoft servers corrupted our network last Friday.  We have had technicians working to resolve this matter since the issue emerged and throughout the weekend, but due to the time it takes to scan and reset all servers I am afraid we will not be able to restore IT facilities in time for students to return in the morning. 

We do of course operate emergency contingency plans in such rare situations in order to minimise disruptions to learning and as such the plan we have put in place for tomorrow is as follows:

• Students in years 11, 12 and 13 should attend school as normal and will receive their usual timetable of lessons.  Registers will be retained and uploaded to sims.  Please ensure any absence is reported swiftly in the usual way so we are aware of any students not to expect.  Lessons will be taught using paper resources and non-technology based teaching.  This is to ensure students preparing for assessments informing Teacher Assessed Grades are not disadvantaged with any further breaks in learning.
• Students in years 7-10 will unfortunately need to work from home.  Thankfully students are accustomed to accessing Google Classrooms and we are able to set work for them away via alternate Wi-Fi/4G.  Please could all students in years 7-10 complete all tasks set for them in Google classrooms.  This will be focussed on core and Ebacc subjects as opposed to their usual timetable for the day.
• Staff will not have access to emails or InTouch during the day until the network is restored.  Please therefore divert communications to phonecalls until we are back on line.  We will deploy additional staff to manage communications in this interim period.

We will continue to update you via the website and social media platforms but would request your support in alerting other families to read this message to ensure all members of our community are reached.

Many thanks as always for your continued support, and again my sincere apologies for any inconvenience caused by this wholly unexpected and undesirable situation.

Tash Hurtado, Headteacher