Dear Parents and carers,

 

I am sure you will have heard on the news that the Prime Minister has reiterated his intentions for schools to move to wider opening from 1st June.

 

Daily I am receiving more and more updates with advice on how this wider opening should happen and I am being extremely thorough in my reading of all of the documents to ensure that when we do open, I have taken all the actions expected of me by the Local Authority and the DfE.

 

This is taking a great deal of time to plan and organise, to ensure that it is as safe as possible for your children and my staff to return to school with these higher numbers of pupils. So please do not expect all of the year groups to return immediately. As is the case with many schools, we will be staggering the return of the year groups outlined in the DfE guidance (nursery, year R, 1 and 6) and once Boris Johnson has confirmed, on Thursday, that this wider reopening will go ahead then I will include my plans on my Thursday update.

 

Please note, in response to requests for information through texts, my updates and direct phone calls, I am planning for the return of those children whose parents contacted us last week to confirm their child/children would like to return when possible. 

 

However, if you decided to keep your child at home, that is absolutely fine, but should you change your mind you will not be able to just turn up with your child or ring up and ask for them to come in the next day, as the logistics of this new way of schooling is very complicated. If numbers increased suddenly it would mean I need to organise further classrooms and staffing which is not easy as each class now needs at least 2 teachers as class sizes will be no greater than 15. Also there are physically not enough rooms to continue to house ever growing numbers. What I do intend to do is provide parents, who have chosen to keep their children at home, with the opportunity to review their situation at certain times over the next few weeks. This will give me and the staff time to prepare for even greater numbers of children in school. 

 

If your child is returning to school and is in one of the specified year groups, it is expected that they will now attend full time, this also applies to those children of key workers and vulnerable children if they are in those year groups. So for example, if your child has been attending school because you are a key worker and they are in year 1, they will now be expected to join their year 1 class full time to re start their education. This means that in the infant school, the only children who will be attending the vulnerable/key worker class will be pupils from year 2. In the junior school the vulnerable/ keyworker class will be for pupils in years 3,4 and 5. Part-time childcare in the vulnerable/key worker class will still be available as it is at the moment with booking necessary.

 

I sincerely hope that you are all keeping safe and maintaining social distancing to help keep your children, families and the community safe. There will be many expectations on the children and yourselves to keep to these rules once wider opening begins for the safety of us all. I know you will understand why this is necessary.

 

As I said earlier, my Thursday update will include all the detail about how we plan to start our wider opening once this has been confirmed by Mr Johnson.

 

With best wishes

 

Sheila Pape

Executive Headteacher