Return to School
26th February 2021
Dear Parents/Carers,
We all hope that your families are all well. Following the Prime Minister’s recent announcement, we are delighted to be in a position to welcome all children back to school from Monday 8th March.
School Arrangements
It has been an uncertain time for us all and many of you may still feel anxious about the return. We want to assure you that we have continued to review all systems and procedures to maintain a safe environment for all staff and children. Many of these procedures were already in place during the Autumn term. In addition, many of our own staff are carrying out twice weekly testing to ensure that any asymptomatic staff are not on site as we find out. With the increased numbers of children returning, children will now re-form their original ‘class bubbles’.
To ensure the safety of all staff, pupils and parents, we will be asking everybody to follow the health and safety guidelines and protocols established during the Autumn Term. These helped to keep everyone as safe as possible and we would ask for your support in this matter again. The current Risk Assessment is available on the school website if you required additional information. Following government guidance, staff will be wearing masks in communal areas and where social distancing is not possible between adults. There is no expectation that children wear masks.
Despite the pandemic, please remember that we are always aiming for all of our pupils to have high attendance and punctuality rates. However, it is essential that if your child, or anyone in your household have any symptoms of COVID-19, that you stay home and get a test before your child returns to school. If you have any concerns, please remember to contact us by phone. We must stress that ALL children are expected back in school from 8th March unless they have symptoms and usual attendance procedures will apply to those who do not attend. These absences will be marked as ‘unauthorised’ and low attendance will be followed up by school.
We will continue with our staggered start and finish times as before – with allocated school entrances and exit points for year groups. We appreciate that the changes may cause some disruption to working parents, however these measures have been taken to reduce the risk of transmission for the whole school community. In addition, we ask that parents and families do not mix and congregate at the start and end of the day and people respect social distancing guidelines. We ask that parents wear face masks at these times – particularly those entering the school site.
8.45am start and 3.15pm finish
3JB – School playground 4CB – Tanhouse Gate
5FC – Hamstead Gate (Bottom) 6SM – Hamstead Gate (Top)
9.00am start and 3.30pm finish
3JC – School playground 4JB – Tanhouse Gate
5MH – Hamstead Gate (Bottom) 6SK – Hamstead Gate (Top)
Children will not need to bring in personal stationery as school will continue to provide individual packs in school. We ask that children bring lunches in a disposable bag. In addition, children are to continue to come to school in sports kit ready for lessons on their PE days.
3JB – Tuesday and Wednesday 3JC – Tuesday and Thursday
4CB – Monday and Friday 4JB – Monday and Friday
5FC – Tuesday and Wednesday 5MH – Tuesday and Wednesday
6SK – Monday and Friday 6SM – Monday and Friday
School Dinners
For parents who request a school dinner, please ensure that you have placed your order using the ‘School Grid’ (normal procedure). Please order any meals by 8.30am on Monday 8th March to ensure your child receives a meal.
Remote Learning
Governors have thoroughly enjoyed continuing to receive all of the children’s completed ‘Challenges’ during the lockdown. We hope many of you are enjoying completing these as a family and would love to see even more pictures and work being sent into school over the next few months. Staff have equally enjoyed receiving all of the completed work from our remote sessions. With this in mind, we would ask that the children bring in all books and work completed during lockdown on their return to school. These will be stored for 72 hours to allow staff to check all of the work completed.
On our return to school, we hope that any disruption is kept to a minimum now that all pupils are returning. Remote learning will continue should there be a need to close a bubble, or for any child self-isolating. We will continue with our remote education which will be accessed from the school website.
For those families that have borrowed any devices during the lockdown, please return these to school as soon as possible from 8th March so that these can be sanitised ready for redistribution. Please note that our Online Safety information and guidance for parents is available on the school website.
Finally, I would like to thank all parents for their continued support, patience and hard-work with supporting the children with their remote learning. All staff have thoroughly enjoyed receiving the many emails showing some amazing work during the last few weeks. We understand that this has placed additional challenges on families.
We all now hope that we can continue to move forward with the children back in school, learning and enjoying being together.
Yours sincerely,
N.Fowler
Acting Headteacher