We all get it and it is not very nice. The link below is to some very helpful advice from ‘Mind’.
Please do not forget that we are here for you if you need us. You can email any of your teachers or phone us and we will be happy to help, even if you just need a bit of TLC and a kind word.
Best of luck for your exams,
Mr Burgess
http://www.mind.org.uk/Information/Booklets/How+to/How+to+cope+with+exam+stress.htm
I was very impressed by the way that you conducted yourself yesterday, and to let you know that we all meant every word we said! You are a credit to the College, and we have high aspirations for you all this summer. If you remain calm, focussed and committed, all the work will be worthwhile and you will achieve all that you are capable of.
Please remember that all the staff are still here to support you, in between & after your examinations, should you need any extra help or advice - we will not be going anywhere! Please feel free to email or phone me or your subject teachers over the exam period if you need our help or support.
So, GO FOR IT over for the next few weeks, and I hope you get the grades that you deserve and are hoping for.Just to remind you about the Record of Achievement and The Prom is on Friday 3rd July, there are some tickets left for The Prom if you have not yet got one.
With every best wish for your future success,
Sue Ponulak
Dear Parents and Carers,
Like all schools in London and the UK, Bacon’s College is following advice from the Department of Children Schools and Families and is well prepared to ensure the safety of all of its students by responding quickly and decisively to any possible future events involving Swine Flu.
Our preparations include:
· writing to every parent to let them know what preparations we are making and to provide advice about Swine Flu (see also the NHS Direct web site http://www.nh sdirect.nhs.uk/ or call NHS Direct.
· seeking individual parent’s permission to allow their children to be sent home without prior contact, to ensure students can leave the site and travel home quickly. In this event a notice will be posted in the Announcements/News section of the web site to explain what is happening and students will be instructed to call their parents to let them know they are on the way home, and again when they have reached home safely.
Please note that we will avoid, whenever possible, closing the College during a school day.
· talking to all of our students about how to avoid passing on bugs by washing their hands thoroughly and dealing carefully with coughs or sneezes.
· ensuring that we have every student’s up to date emergency contact details.
· providing an online notice board to get information to parents and students quickly and effectively (www.baconsctc.co.uk - click on Announcements/News). Any important announcements will be posted on the web site immediately so please check it regularly.
If you have any questions about Swine Flu then please read the advice posted on our website in the ‘Announcements/News’ section or refer directly to NHS Direct for any medical advice.
Finally, in the event that you suspect that your child might be affected by Swine Flu please keep your child at home until you have sought medical advice, again in the first instance call NHS Direct.
I will be writing to you personally and you should receive my letter over the next few days.
Thank you for your support and assistance in this matter.
Tony Perry
Principal
· when you cough or sneeze, cover your nose and mouth with a tissue;
· throw away your tissue, into a proper bag or bin, as soon as you’ve used it.
· Wash your hands
On days when you are coughing, sneezing or blowing your nose, frequently wash your hands often with soap and water; or, if you can’t use soap and water, use wipes or gels.
See more advice below at: “How to wash and dry your hands”.
Remember:
Washing your hands is the single best way that you can help stop spreading germs that cause illness with coughs and sneezes.
1 Wet your hands with warm water, then add soap.
2 Rub in the soap, while you count to fifteen. Make sure you rub the soap into:
· the backs of your hands;
· the backs of your fingers;
· your finger-nails;
· your finger-tips;
· the skin between your fingers.
3 Rinse your hands under running water.
4 Dry your hands with a disposable paper towel or a hot-air blower.
[If you are wearing any rings or bracelets, remove them before washing your hands. If you have any cuts or scratches, cover them with a clean dressing]
DfES & DH/ HPA, 2007.
The deadly, contagious new swine flu strain that sprang into being in Mexico and began setting off fears of a pandemic this past weekend has raised a lot of questions. To answer a few of the biggest, National Geographic News turned to the experts.
Q: How safe is eating pork?
A: As safe as it ever was.
Handling and consuming animal products, such as pork, can transmit some viruses. But that’s not how the H1N1 swine flu virus is spreading, said Christine Layton, a public health policy analyst with the North Carolina-based nonprofit research institute RTI International.
Swine flu is a respiratory virus, spread from person to person. In other words: A sneezing chef is a threat, not the spare ribs he’s basting.
In fact, if the swine flu virus were primarily being transmitted from pigs to people, public health officials probably wouldn’t be so concerned. That kind of transmission tends to limit a virus’s human spread to farmers and meat workers—people who are likely to come into contact with animals’ bodily fluids.
Q. Can those face masks really protect me from swine flu?
A. Yes and no.
The blue surgical masks you’ve seen being passed out to Mexican pedestrians are better than nothing but probably only marginally useful, said Andrew Pekosz, associate professor of microbiology and immunology at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in Baltimore, Maryland.
While such masks block the relatively large, virus-carrying droplets sneezed out by infected people, the viruses themselves are much smaller and could easily pass through. Specialty masks, designated N-95 or N-99, are better filters but still not perfect.
For better protection, Pekosz recommends combining a mask with regular hand washing and keeping 3 to 4 feet (90 to 120 centimeters) away from other people.
Q. Is this just another media health scare? How worried should we be?
A. The truth lies somewhere in between panic and eye-rolling.
Making the jump from animal-to-person to person-to-person transmission is a rare skill for a flu virus to “learn.” This ability makes H1N1 swine flu potentially dangerous—and makes the concern about it a bit different from the worries over bird flu, which has yet to make such a transition.
Human-to-human transmission is a big part of why public health officials are pouring resources into swine flu and why they want you to be aware that the virus is out there.
That said, experts like Johns Hopkins’s Pekosz and RTI’s Layton say there’s currently no reason to lock yourself up in the house.
For one thing, the cases outside Mexico have been no more serious than your average flu bug. Right now, nobody is sure why that is. And while the severity of the symptoms could increase, Pekosz said there’s not really an immediate, serious threat to individuals within the United States.
“However,” he said, “it certainly merits the public paying attention, and it warrants the public health efforts that have been going on in terms of monitoring and research.”
Q. How does a pig-bird-human mash-up swine flu virus happen, anyway?
A. Blame the pigs, and the virus.
Flu viruses are “very messy reproducers,” RTI’s Layton said.
All eight flu genes replicate independently. If a cell is infected with three different flu viruses, reproduction can mean a reshuffling of genetic material from multiple parents, thrown together randomly into the “baby” flu virus.
Most of the time, those cut-and-paste viruses don’t work out very well, Johns Hopkins’s Pekosz said. But every so often, this natural reassortment will come up with a new flu virus that has some kind of advantage over its competitors.
H1N1 swine flu is one of those, but we’ve certainly seen others in the past 30 years, he said. Pigs are part of the problem because they can become infected with flu viruses from birds and humans. As such, swine seem to provide a particularly good environment for this genetic square dance to take place.
