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School Meals: A new cashless system

As part of our work to make school catering Covid-Secure, from the start of the new term in September, our school will operate a cashless system for payment of school meals. This system will ensure all our students are able to pay for school meals safely without the risks associated with handling cash. Cash will no longer be taken to pay for school meals, but our new cashless system will offer you and your child a range of ways to pay onsite or online.

Online for September

To ensure our catering services are ready for the reopening of schools in September we’ll need to enrol all students onto this new cashless system. To give you the ability to pay online, if required. We’ll be creating accounts with ParentPay. This online payment system is quick and easy to set up. It’ll keep you informed about your child’s purchases, the balance on their account, and when to top-up.

Free school meals students

Our new cashless system is designed to work the same for all students regardless of free school meal entitlement. Students who are entitled to free school meals will not be highlighted at the till. All student accounts are accessed at the tills using exactly the same manner regardless of their entitlement.

What data will we hold?

If you choose to pay through ParentPay, they will hold details of your email address and your child’s name, year group and class. The system will also record if a student is eligible for free school meals. All your data will be handled according to the General Data Protection Regulations and North Tyneside Council’s rigorous standards for data handling.

Next Steps

You will receive a ParentPay activation letter in the next couple of weeks. Please follow the instructions and activate your account before the 1st September. Both the school and the council appreciate your cooperation on this matter to ensure the continuation of staff and student safety.

For further information please go to: https://my.northtyneside.gov.uk/category/131/school-meals

Congratulations to all our Year 11 students who received their GCSE grades today. It was great to see everybody in school this morning as students and staff celebrated all of their hard work.

There was a lovely positive atmosphere and the sense of trust and confidence that the students had in their teachers and their judgements was clear to see. It has been a privilege to have all of the Class of 2020 with us over the past 5 years, and we are very pleased to have been able to see them enjoying the grades they have worked so hard for, and are so well deserved. We are all very proud of them and what they have achieved.

We wish all our students all the best for their next steps in education or apprenticeship, and we look forward to seeing them all again at our celebration event, hopefully at some point in the Autumn term.

Mr Snape

This week our students will receive their GCSE results, and thankfully these will be in the form of Centre Assessed Grades. One of the most impressive features of Marden High School is the way that the learning and progress of every single student across every subject is tracked. The process is then subject to regular review by department heads and senior staff to ensure the basis of assessment is robust and is of the highest possible degree of accuracy. One of the major roles of the Governing Body is to monitor this process and challenge the school where we feel teaching and learning falls below the high standards we have set ourselves. As parents and students I think it is really important that you can have considerable confidence in the grades you have been awarded. I am sure the staff will be more than happy to talk through the results with students should anyone wish to do so.   

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The publication of the grades is the end of a national process where
centres were asked to decide most likely grades for pupils in each subject,
taking into account the progress that each of you had made through your
time studying in Year 10 and 11. These grades were put in rank order, by
grade, for each subject and sent to the exam boards. Working with OFQUAL,
the exam boards will now apply a standardisation process to all schools and
this is how the grades that you pick up in August will be arrived at. There
is a short video, produced by OFQUAL, that explains the process here:

There is also a student guide here:

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As part of this process, staff can not discuss the grade or rank order that
was submitted with either yourself or parents/carers before results day.
There will be information provided on the day explaining how you can apply
for this information. Appeals will be possible based only on the technical
calculation of the standardised grade. OFQUAL decided it would not be in
the interests of students or the fairness of the arrangements overall for
centre assessed grades (CAGs) to be appealed.

OFQUAL have also announced that an Autumn series of exams in all subjects,
where there is demand, will go ahead. This series will not take into
account coursework. These exams will take place between 2nd November and
23rd November. We are awaiting further clarification of where these exams
will be sat, although you will be entered by Marden. Again, there will be
more information about this available with your results.

At the present time we are planning results day in line with government
advice. We would like to see you pick up your grades and offer the support
we would usually. To accommodate this we have structured the day as below.
Results collection will be staggered, with each form group having a slot as
outlined below:

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