RE: Essential power works

Dear Parents/Carers

The school needs to have its electrical power upgraded in a project led by Southern Electric and Hampshire County Council. This work is due to begin on the evening of Friday 21 November and be completed over the weekend. This is a substantial piece of work involving the fitting of a new transformer in the substation at the front of the school, new power lines and a large new electrical kiosk fitted on a plinth near the Brook Lane perimeter. The school will have no power until the work is completed.

The school is planning to power up on Monday morning, which includes rebooting all our servers and other IT infrastructure, the lifts, and the fire alarms. Given the complexity of the work and subsequent re-powering, the school will be closed on Monday 24 November to ensure that all systems are safe and ready for students and staff to return on Tuesday 25 November. This course of action has been agreed by the local authority. Whilst we appreciate this is inconvenient, we have given as much notice as possible so that you are able to put plans in place for Monday 24 November.

For Year 11 parents, we do understand that this is a mock exam day and we will repeat the exams scheduled on the closure day on Monday 8 December with exactly the same schedule. An amended mock timetable has been attached to this message for your convenience and reference with changes highlighted in yellow.

The school will update you on Monday 24 November on how the electrical work has gone. The information we have at the moment is that we expect to be able to open as usual on Tuesday unless there are serious complications over the weekend. We will set all work for the closure day on EduLink on Friday 21 November, but please note that the school will remain out of contact until we have fully restored power.

I thank you in anticipation of your support.

Kind regards

Mr Parkes

Headteacher