School Reopening

Godstowe reopened at the beginning of term on Monday 7th September. We were delighted to welcome all of our pupils and staff back onsite.

As a member of the BSA, Godstowe is proud to be adopting the Boarding Schools’ Association COVID-Safe Charter which aims to ensure the safety of all pupils and staff as schools re-open across the UK, following closures due to the Coronavirus pandemic.

We are committed to ensuring that the school has all appropriate, government-directed measures in place so that our pupils and staff onsite can learn, live, and work securely and safely.

On this page are links to some key documents and the latest updates. If you have any further queries, please do not hesitate to get in touch.

Key information

COVID-19 - quick guide for parents

Main School - Detailed pick-up & drop-off information

Pick-up and drop-off slots - first four weeks of term - PDF | 59KB

Policy on devices and accessories - PDF | 64KB

Detailed information regarding return to school in September - PDF | 84KB

School Reopening Letter to Lodge Parents - PDF | 76KB

Boarders' return to school information request - PDF | 65KB

Virtual Godstowe - how we managed the move to online learning

"We thought it was all absolutely excellent! Our children were keen, engaged, and focused. They thoroughly enjoyed it and we believe they kept on track with their studies. Thank you Godstowe. You did an excellent job!"
Parent Survey, August 2020

Headmistress Sophie Green With the COVID 19 school closure, the summer term was challenging in many ways. I am so proud of the way our community pulled together to adapt and thrive in the new environment in which we found ourselves.

The wonderful staff at Godstowe worked exceptionally hard to develop a full programme of virtual learning to offer a structure for our children whilst allowing flexibility to fit with families’ different circumstances.

We had to work quickly to put together a new ‘virtual’ friendly timetable, remote learning safeguarding and advice, and to find and test the most user-friendly and secure platforms for online learning. Throughout the closure, we also ran a school onsite for the children of our key workers, alongside the virtual school.

Clearly what we were offering online was quite different from “normal” school, but we very much hoped that the children would be stimulated by the change and variety of media and engage with the new opportunities. Which they were! In the spirit of our School motto, Finem Respice - strive towards your goal, our pupils adapted to this temporary, new way of learning very quickly with enthusiasm and perseverance and it became the new normal very quickly. Their enthusiasm for learning and their ability to overcome technical challenges has been extraordinary.

I am proud of the way our staff adapted and worked creatively to move to teaching online. The situation has taught us how amazing digital technology is to have enabled us to be together as a community - albeit ‘together’ in a different way.

In spite of the challenging circumstances in which many of our families found themselves, the engagement and support of our parent community was extraordinary, for which we are very grateful.

Godstowe is so much more than the buildings, and our strong sense of community and family spirit really did come into its own to embrace this new challenge.

Thank you, to everyone.

With best wishes,

Sophie Green
Headmistress

Virtual Godstowe Documents:

Virtual Godstowe Handbook - PDF | 326KB

Timetables - Summer Term 2020 - PDF | 202KB

Remote Learning Safeguarding Policy - PDF | 343KB

Remote Learning Tips for Children - PDF | 493KB

Remote Learning Tips for Parents - PDF | 462KB

Technical Requirements for the Virtual School

For those families who needed suitable devices for their child or children to use for learning, we arranged to lend Godstowe Chromebooks, and our IT team was on hand to help with any technical difficulties.

Virtual School - Prize-giving and Assemblies

Here is our Summer 2020 Prizegiving, and a selection of our whole school virtual assemblies. We enjoyed coming together online as a school to celebrate the amazing things our pupils achieved.