In his latest update to pupils and parents the principal of Exmouth Community College has described how the college has now essentially become 'three schools in one'.

This week the school enters a new phase as it moves to become three distinct schools in one.

The college has had to adapt to new Government regulations due to the Coronavirus outbreak and is currently working through a staged reintroduction of pupils.

In his latest update ECC principal Andrew Davis explained some of the challenges faced by the college, he said: "Our traditional school with staff teaching face to face sessions for keyworker and priority students where students arrive in the morning and sit for lessons throughout the day. At the moment we are expecting at least 66 students on some days next week with 70 plus likely to attend. This is now resourced and timetabled daily with approximately 20 staff each day on site working with those students.

"Our online school which is providing blended education for over 1,500 students through some face to face sessions, which I am sure will grow as Government restrictions allow and we become more confident in our delivery. We are also providing online learning which we are moving from relatively static delivery through Class Charts to a far more dynamic delivery through MS Teams. This provision will also grow as staff, and more importantly but less obviously, students, become more confident with this new learning environment.

"We are now ready to start accepting Year 10 and Year 12 students back on site and parents/carers should by now have received individual joining instructions. We have had to reduce our provision a little at the moment to meet Government guidelines about split days and only having a quarter of Year 10 and 12 on site, however, I hope we will be able to expand the provision over the coming weeks. As always though we will start small to ensure everyone is kept as safe as possible and then expand as we become more confident in our systems. To help show students how we have modified the site you can find a short video here.

"Finally, we have our community hub which is providing additional welfare checks and pastoral support to a huge number of students and their families across Exmouth and beyond. This is very labour intensive with many phone calls being made every day to check in on students, attend multi-agency meetings remotely and our pastoral teams arranging everything from printing out work to food parcels to Free School Meal vouchers to laptops as well as providing hugely appreciated emotional support to many families and children to keep them as safe and engaged as they possibly can be."

Mr Davis paid tribute to 'the fantastic support of our parents, carers, children and our community' for helping the college 'completely remodel the way in which we deliver education'.

He added: "We haven't got everything perfect and I am sure we will further develop and expand our educational and pastoral provision over the coming weeks."

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