12th June 2020

Dear Parents and Carers,

I hope you are all keeping well and safe.

You may have seen the Education Secretary’s announcement this week that the Government have scrapped their plans for having all primary age children returning to school before the Summer holidays. We know how many of you would like your children back in school, no more than us, and knowing that for some of you, your child may not return to school before at least September is very disappointing.

As it has always been, our priority is the health, safety and well-being of all our children and staff and all decisions we have made over the last few months have been rooted in that, whilst attempting to meet the Government guidelines as well as analysing local health rates.

Currently we are in the process of a wider reopening for Y6 pupils and from Monday 15th June we will begin to welcome a small group of Y1 pupils back into working bubbles. We are also supporting a growing group of key worker children, currently across 2 different bubbles.

At the present time, we have made provision to add further bubbles for some Reception children but this depends on our capacity based on our staffing, the space we have available and any further uptake from other bubbles. We will make a final decision for this in the next week, once we have more information. We will keep you updated as soon as we can. If we are able to and it’s safe to do so, we will do everything we can to get more children through our doors before the Summer holidays.

We will continue to provide home learning materials via our class pages on our website for those of you working at home and our staff are still on hand for any support and guidance. If you have any concerns regarding the work your child is doing at home or have difficulty accessing the 100s of home learning activities staff have been producing this term, then please contact your child’s teacher via their class emails.

Many of you have been asking about what is going to happen in September. At the moment, we know as much as you. Speculation about every child being back in ‘as normal’ or some children in some days on a rota, is not helpful and we are pushing as a group of schools and a Local Authority for more concrete information from DFE for us all to plan ahead for September.

With more and more of our children online or on their own devices, keeping our children safe online has never been more critical. We have previously published lots of the excellent National Online Safety guidance on e-safety either through our special parent events or on our social media. If you have missed any of their crucial advice then please visit https://nationalonlinesafety.com to sign up for free advice and guides to share with your children.

We all really miss the children. School is not the same without all the gorgeous smiles, curious minds and imaginative thinking in our classrooms. We are doing our best to support you either in school or at home and we thank you for your gratitude and patience. As always, if you have any questions or concerns, then please get in touch.

Take care and keep smiling. In the words of Captain Tom “Tomorrow will be a good day.”

Alison Mitchinson