News

Press Release: Completion of the Deal to Save the Shrubbery School

For immediate release

The Shrubbery School are delighted to announce, with the help & assistance of Andrew Mitchell MP, that Exchange of legal contracts has taken place to save the school. The current owner, Mr Eric Allen and his fellow Directors are over the moon that the 90yrs of The Shrubbery School will continue for many years to come.

With immediate effect, the current Directors have resigned and the school will now be led by Craig Johnson, who is Governor of King Edward VI Handsworth Grammar School for Boys and founded a Residential Home for young adults with severe learning disabilities and autism. Craig will be the Managing Director of the Shrubbery School Ltd with immediate effect.

The new owners wanted to reassure Students, Parents and Staff that with all the upheaval of the last few weeks that they are fully committed to continuing the Shrubbery as a school. As such, they have entered into a voluntary covenant to prevent any re-development of the School Site. We are also delighted that the school will continue to be lead by the award winning Amanda Lees (link to award), who looks forward to this new and exciting chapter in The Shrubbery’s history.

We know it has been very difficult for the parents with the uncertainty surrounding the future education of your children, it is imperative to note that the new investors wanted everyone to know: “NOTHING changes.” A meet the new owner’s day will be arranged over the coming days where we will discuss our vision and thoughts for the Shrubbery School, as well as lots of additional communication to all stakeholders.

The Directors of The Shrubbery School Ltd

End of Term Message from Mrs Lees

Congratulations to us all for getting to the end of another half term during a pandemic.

Here we are at the end of another half term, it continues to be a very trying time for us all in many respects. I am indebted to the staff at The Shrubbery for keeping everything going; from cleaning regimes, teaching online and ensuring that children at home and keyworkers continue to have the provision in school. I know we all have our fingers crossed for the moment that we are told that we can throw our doors open to every child. I continue to be proud of our children who are continuing to show resilience and manage their learning through these difficult times. A big shout out to you all. Thank you to parents, grandparents and carers for helping and supporting our children. We are all experts on Zoom and Google Classroom.

Thank you to the many parents who have sent messages of thanks into school either by email, text, telephone or face to face on the drive, with regards to our remote learning provision. We have been really impressed with the engagement of the children and this is testament to the support that you are giving them as well as the professionalism and expertise of our staff to ensure that quality learning continues to take place. Teachers have said how much they have learned during this time of remote learning – you are never too old to learn a new skill! Don’t forget to share with us anything new that you can now do that you couldn’t do before lockdown.

As you have been aware, we have had staff suffering from Covid. We now have a regular lateral testing program for staff to test themselves twice a week or in the event they feel unwell. This will enable us to continue to monitor our staff’s health and keep the virus out of school as best we can.

We hoped that you enjoyed taking part in Birdwatch and saw some wonderful birds in and around your garden. My favourite sighting was of a Harris hawk in the field when I fed the horses last weekend. A very special moment. Nature is a wonderful phenomenon

The 9th February was Safer Internet Day. As we are spending more and more time on our devices we need to protect ourselves. The theme for this year is: An Internet we trust: exploring reliability in the online world. The children have taken part in assembly stories and activities to enable themselves to keep safe whilst having fun and learning.

Below are some useful websites most have free resources to support parents/carers and practitioners in guiding children’s safety online.

• www.saferinternet.org.uk UK Safer Internet has many free resources to support the age 3-7 age group including a video of “digiduck” who believes what he read on the internet and got his homework wrong- it gives advice on how to check facts.

• www.nspcc.org.uk National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children also has resources for safeguarding children online - did you know that Instagram was the most used platform in child grooming crimes during lockdown April-June 2020?

• https://www.ceop.police.uk/safety-centre/ Child Exploitation Online Protection Centre also has useful free resources.

• https://www.childnet.com/ Childnet has useful free resources for parents and children.

More details can also be found on the school website.

Book Day will be on March 4th, however to keep the learning exciting, we will be doing a Book Week. This is where all of our teachers have pooled their ideas to come up with an exciting week for the children to participate in. I hope everyone, old and young will share what they have made, written and designed – we look forward to seeing some budding new authors. Think about creative ways in which you can present your work. We will have another Book Week later in the year, where we hopefully will be able to dress up and be all together.

Science Week takes place from the 5th March. Your teachers will be exploring ideas around the learning of science, setting tasks, developing your child’s knowledge and investigative skills. Mr Griffin will also be posting work around keeping our bodies healthy and fit in addition to our daily work outs to start the day.

We wish our staff and those within your families that are unwell a speedy recovery. Take care of yourselves over the February half term holiday, remain safe and socially distanced. As a school, we will be closely following the Government guidelines in the event of any changes that may occur and will keep you all informed as to any changes in our plans or how we are operating.

School closes for half term on Friday 12th February 2021 and reopens on Monday 22nd February 2021 for keyworker children.

Best wishes

Mrs Amanda Lees