Coronavirus Letter 18.3.20

Dear Parents/carers

As you will be aware, Government and Public Health England guidance changed this week. The new advice is that anyone showing the symptoms of either a new and persistent cough and/or a high temperature, should self isolate for 14 days, along with the entire family/household. This means no one should leave the family home during this time to protect the health of everyone in the community. Also people with significant underlying health conditions should consider self -isolating. Self isolating requires whole households to remain at home for a minimum of 14 days.

We are encouraging hand washing in school, but are aware that for some children the soap is causing discomfort to their hands. If you wish, you can send in a bottle of hand soap, sanitiser or hand cream labelled with your child’s name and we will keep this for their use. We have asked all parents to ensure their children wash their hands with soap before coming to school as well as on arrival.

We are cancelling all clubs from the end of this week. Parents of children attending after school clubs on Wednesday and Thursday should wait on the front playground. The children will be brought through the library to meet you. The Year 1 trip and swimming for Red Squirrels has also been cancelled.

Teaching staff are currently planning “Home Learning” alongside their regular class planning. We will use Tapestry and the website to communicate these plans. In the event of school closure we will aim to set daily maths and English learning activities alongside a weekly grid of suggested cross curricular learning activities. We are currently compiling a list of websites for home learning your child can use if they are absent. You can also download free audiobooks from many websites, including Oxford Owl, where you can register for free. This will support home reading.

There will be a home learning package for each child sent home in the case of closure including an exercise book and writing materials for them to record their learning. Photographs on Tapestry will also be a good way of recording their learning. Staff will check this regularly and provide guidance and support as necessary.

Please do not send in any unnecessary bags. Many children bring a large rucksack and it only has their lunch and water bottle in it. The fewer items in school the better. Please remove keyrings etc from their book bags.

In addition to all of this we have cancelled whole school assemblies as an additional measure.

We are also cancelling any non-emergency meetings in school, and this includes meeting with teachers. Thank you to parents/carers who are ringing in with messages or questions rather than coming to the hatch in the office. As you can appreciate, our office staff are exceptionally busy at the moment as we follow up on guidance, absences, checking with vulnerable families and prepare work etc for children so by ringing in and ensuring your child has everything they need, we can focus on the important work.

A huge thank you to parents and carers for being so supportive and sensible at this time. Please be reassured we are doing all we can in line with government and PHE guidance and your support with the measures we are taking is much appreciated. Please refer to the official websites if you have any questions, or if they are more school specific you can ring or email and we will do our best to give a swift response.

Best wishes
Jo Davenport