This week, Schools North East has been reaching out to the region’s schools to offer our thanks for the amazing work we have seen this year. Chris Zarraga, Director of Schools North East, sent the following message to all North East school staff in recognition of their superb performance throughout one of the most difficult years schools have seen to date:
Before you head into the summer holidays and what I hope will be a long and thoroughly deserved rest, I would like to offer my deepest and most sincere thanks for the incredible job that you and all of your staff have done throughout this year. This was supposedly the first ‘normal’ academic year since the covid pandemic began, but it has undoubtedly been the toughest one that you have faced yet.
This year has been far from ‘normal’ and I wanted to express how proud the Schools North East team is to have witnessed first hand the dignified, determined, and courageous way in which you and your colleagues have risen to the impossible demands made of you. Despite everything that you have faced, the horrendous toll staff and student absences have taken, the return of face to face assessments, and the resumption of Ofsted inspections, your passion and dedication has never wavered. Once again, you have done a truly amazing job.
It is with a sense of enduring pride in North East schools that I say ‘many, many thanks’ for your efforts. You and your colleagues really are the ‘fourth emergency service’. It has been a privilege to see what you have done for your students, their communities, and our region, but also to see the incredible way that your students, with your support, have responded to another difficult and very different year to the last one.
I hope that you take this summer to relax and recuperate as you deserve, free from unnecessary planning and paperwork. I look forward to seeing you again, in person, in September. Hopefully then the new ‘normal’ will be a little more like the old ‘normal’ but better.
Chris also paid a special tribute to all of our Partner Schools. 2021-22 has been another very successful year for Schools North East and our Partner Schools are at the heart and soul of everything we do and are about. Partner School support for the charity and its work has been incredible and has underpinned everything that we do.
Have a great Summer! We look forward to seeing you again in September.
To find out more about becoming a Schools North East Partner School please visit: https://schoolsnortheast.org/partner-school/
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