The past week has been at times dramatic and challenging. You may well have taken account of the responses to the Prime Minister's announcement of partial re-opening of schools across England. The teaching unions, BMA, Ofsted, and the Children's Commissioner have all added commentary and opinion on the plans. Advice continues to be contradictory and vague, from all sources. I appreciate you may be finding this distressing or confusing.
I am happy to give you an update on how we are navigating these difficult times to offer you and your children the best support we can.
I have been directed by the DfE to prepare the school to receive selected year groups back in school after the half term break. I have accelerated our plans to make this happen. I am sure you have read the earlier detail in the school blog, showing you what I consider to be the most practical response to this. I will repeat our position that at this moment the only year groups that are being invited to return are year six and year one.
My special thanks to Mr Hession and Mrs Waters who are busy planning the curriculum for their year groups. Both have come up with a great offer for the children, which primarily addresses their emotional needs first and offers a partial return to routine. Their lesson content will be supportive, fun and inspirational. I am indebted to both leaders for a great job so far. I truly believe the lessons they have planned will be the right thing for our children. Other special mentions need to go to my SLT colleagues - Mrs Joseph, Mr Lea and Mrs Dias who have all been working tirelessly to keep the school moving forward, helping respond to the directives in a practical and positive way, supporting the most vulnerable children with home visits, food bank donations, and laptop loans, and offering support and direction to our Home Learning. Mr l'Aimable has been an amazing example to everyone, working in school every day to ensure the site functions at its best, liaising with contractors and keeping the site clean and hygienic. He may actually be related to the Eveready Bunny, he never seems to slow down or get weary. Our fabulous office team have also been a super backbone to our operations, managing front of house each day, always with a smile and never a moan. Finally a big thank you to Mr Pettifer, who has been in constant touch with the school and offered kind and intelligent support to all of us.
A major part of our preparations, as you would expect, is the risk assessment process. We are adapting our existing RAs and writing new ones to cover the critical aspects of school, for the partial return. These include a general RA, fire evacuation, safeguarding and SEND support. Most of the practical detail of how we intend to reduce as much of the risks involved in the return to school as possible, has been included in recent blog posts. If you have any specific queries about our plans to safeguard children from infection, not already mentioned in previous blogs, please fee free to send them into the school office for my attention. I intend to publish a summary Frequently Asked Questions document for you by half term.
Further detail that can now be released:
I am aware that there is a lot more to our planning and contingencies that have not yet been recorded or published. Please be aware that the school aims to reduce as many risks in the return to school as we can, however we cannot promise to eliminate all of them.
I hope you can enjoy the remainder of the weekend, stay safe and take care.
Mr Drew
Head Teacher
I am happy to give you an update on how we are navigating these difficult times to offer you and your children the best support we can.
I have been directed by the DfE to prepare the school to receive selected year groups back in school after the half term break. I have accelerated our plans to make this happen. I am sure you have read the earlier detail in the school blog, showing you what I consider to be the most practical response to this. I will repeat our position that at this moment the only year groups that are being invited to return are year six and year one.
My special thanks to Mr Hession and Mrs Waters who are busy planning the curriculum for their year groups. Both have come up with a great offer for the children, which primarily addresses their emotional needs first and offers a partial return to routine. Their lesson content will be supportive, fun and inspirational. I am indebted to both leaders for a great job so far. I truly believe the lessons they have planned will be the right thing for our children. Other special mentions need to go to my SLT colleagues - Mrs Joseph, Mr Lea and Mrs Dias who have all been working tirelessly to keep the school moving forward, helping respond to the directives in a practical and positive way, supporting the most vulnerable children with home visits, food bank donations, and laptop loans, and offering support and direction to our Home Learning. Mr l'Aimable has been an amazing example to everyone, working in school every day to ensure the site functions at its best, liaising with contractors and keeping the site clean and hygienic. He may actually be related to the Eveready Bunny, he never seems to slow down or get weary. Our fabulous office team have also been a super backbone to our operations, managing front of house each day, always with a smile and never a moan. Finally a big thank you to Mr Pettifer, who has been in constant touch with the school and offered kind and intelligent support to all of us.
A major part of our preparations, as you would expect, is the risk assessment process. We are adapting our existing RAs and writing new ones to cover the critical aspects of school, for the partial return. These include a general RA, fire evacuation, safeguarding and SEND support. Most of the practical detail of how we intend to reduce as much of the risks involved in the return to school as possible, has been included in recent blog posts. If you have any specific queries about our plans to safeguard children from infection, not already mentioned in previous blogs, please fee free to send them into the school office for my attention. I intend to publish a summary Frequently Asked Questions document for you by half term.
Further detail that can now be released:
- Children in year six will be able to stay for lunch time. We recommend they either eat a packed lunch brought from home or buy a school meal. We will not be providing hot meals due to the problems of keeping the queues socially distant so our caterers will offer a packed lunch bag instead.
- Our planning for the two year groups is quite detailed now. We will be able to send out details of launch dates, curriculum content, teacher allocation, room allocation and timetables by the end of next week. You should be aware that there is a possible disruption to the realisation of the plans. These may be affected by further directives by the DfE, disruption by the teaching unions, or a change of direction from the local authority. I will keep parents updated on all plans as the week goes on.
- Home learning will be offered to all year groups even after a partial re-opening.
- If a parent is concerned that it is not safe for their child to return to school, there is no penalty for keeping them at home.
I am aware that there is a lot more to our planning and contingencies that have not yet been recorded or published. Please be aware that the school aims to reduce as many risks in the return to school as we can, however we cannot promise to eliminate all of them.
I hope you can enjoy the remainder of the weekend, stay safe and take care.
Mr Drew
Head Teacher
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