19th September 2021

Dear Parents, Carers and Students,

Re: Open Events at Ridgewood High School

I am delighted to be able to invite you to join us at one of our open events in the coming weeks. Choosing a secondary school for your child is both an exciting and a daunting time for the family and can feel like a weighty decision. We would love to show you what we have to offer to help you with this choice. Students and staff at Ridgewood are very proud of our school and we enjoy the opportunity to show it off!

We are very aware that some people will feel confident to visit schools and be surrounded by more people whereas others may feel more nervous. We have a range of experiences on offer and have adapted all of them to reduce the amount of contact you will have with other people that you do not know.

Open Mornings show a normal working day at Ridgewood. You will visit lessons and see most of the school guided mainly by students with the opportunity to speak to key members of staff afterwards such as the Senior Leadership Team and the SEN team. If you want to join us for one of our Open Mornings on 20th, 21st, 27th September or 1st October, please book a tour using the link on our website. You will be touring the school with one other family. On Monday 20th and Tuesday 21st, visitors will need to park in our Dunsley Road car park and come down the steps into school. Accessible parking for wheelchair users or parents with very small children is available through the main entrance. Please make sure you do use the booking system for the Open Mornings to help us control the numbers of visitors on site. You will be given a range of time slots to choose from. Because we are experiencing such high demand, we have added an extra morning.

Our Open Evening on Wednesday 22nd September will give you the opportunity to talk to more of our students and see what they can do in all the subject areas. You will have a tour of the school and listen to speeches from myself and our team of Head Prefects. The Headteacher talk will be run three times (6pm, 7pm and 7.30) and we will manage the numbers of people we will have out on tour or in the Hall at any one point.

We expect all our students to develop into confident, articulate young people who can meet new people and have good eye contact with them. Our students are frequently praised for being so friendly and welcoming. Please make sure you ask them plenty of questions so they can practise their skills!

Students who have joined us over the past two years have settled really well in school even without the chance to participate in all the normal transitional activities. We really hope that this year, we will be able to do all our normal activities over the next few terms.

If you have any specific questions or worries that you don’t manage to answer on your visit, please do contact us on primary@ridgewood.dudley.sch.uk or ring us on 01384 818445. We also have plenty of information on our website.

I look forward to welcoming you, Ridgewood is a great place to work and our students are lovely.

Yours faithfully,

Mrs Rae Cope

Headteacher