Dear Parent, Carer & Guardian 

Following on from my previous communication about the Pastoral Curriculum at Varndean College (7 October), I am writing to you with an update for the term ahead. The focus for Tutorial sessions this term is Personal Safety with topics ranging from Prevent to consent. I am sure you appreciate the important nature of content of this kind as we aim to prepare all of our students to be independent and informed citizens at Varndean College and beyond. Key information regarding this module of Personal Safety and topics covered is detailed below. This may be particularly useful to review in case any of the topics are particularly sensitive to the young person in your care. 

Substance Misuse Awareness

As you know, we are committed to the pastoral care and development of our students. With this in mind, we have arranged a talk on substance misuse and its implications to be given by Bob Tait from Dred UK on Wednesday 20 November. The aim of the talk is to raise awareness of the risks and prevalence of substance use, including key information about drugs including alcohol. 

All of our Foundation Year and Year 1 students (studying Level 3 Vocational / A Level subjects) will be scheduled to attend a talk. These talks are taking place throughout the day on Wednesday 20 November and the young person in your care will be allotted a 60 minute session to attend. This may mean students are not able to attend a scheduled lesson but, due to the importance of the session content, students are allowed to miss their lesson for the duration of the talk. Subject teachers are aware of this and have planned lessons on this day accordingly. Students are being informed of these sessions in Tutorials this week and they will receive a text message to inform them of the time of their allocated session.

Consent and Healthy Relationships

A session on consent and healthy relationships will be delivered in Tutorial sessions in the week beginning 25 November. This is a session which is highly valuable for all students to attend and continues the development of understanding that would have been started through statutory sessions that would have been provided at Secondary School. 

Safe Drive

Students will have access to information on Road Safety via the Tutorial Hub on Google Classroom. This is valuable information as a number of our students may be already learning / keen to learn to drive. It is expected that students access information on the Hub independently in their fortnightly Personal Development sessions. Personal Tutors will be happy to follow up with students if they have any questions or concerns regarding this topic or any other. 

Having carefully considered the content, if you have any concern and you do not wish the young person in your care to attend the sessions detailed above, please email information@varndean.ac.uk to notify us of their absence from a particular session in advance. 

Yours sincerely

George Marshall

Director of Student Engagement & Head of School (Foundation Year)