Monday 16th March 2020: The following letter has today been sent out by Parentmail to all parents and carers:
Dear parents and carers,
You may, like us, be very concerned about the next few weeks and the impact of the Coronavirus on everyday life. I would like to outline what we are doing as a school, but I am also very aware that the situation may have changed by the time I finish writing this e-mail. For that reason, please can I ask you to check that the school has up-to-date contact information for you and ask you to monitor our website for news. If there is an important announcement, we will make sure that there is an alert when you access our website, so that you won’t miss it.
At school, we will be changing some of our routines as a precaution, but stressing to the students that learning continues as normal. The main changes for them will be:
- Large events will be postponed. This means that the House Dance event will NOT go ahead this week.
- Foreign trips will not be going ahead and we will be reviewing trips in the UK
We will be deep cleaning the school in the evenings, so we are asking staff not to stay after 4pm. This means that we can ensure that all keyboards, telephones and handles can be thoroughly cleaned each night.
As the guidelines have recently changed, we are expecting more and more students and staff to be self-isolating in the next few weeks. Please help us by explaining to your children that people who are self-isolating don’t necessarily have the Coronavirus. If you make the decision for your child to be isolated, please inform the school, letting us know their expected return date, and then ask your child to log-on to Frog, where teachers will have put work for each of their classes. Please let us know if you are unable to access Frog from home.
If large numbers of staff are self-isolating, then we will be putting classes together in the Sports Hall. The reason for this is that it will allow us to make sure that students are kept a safe distance away from each other. We are hoping that this is a last resort.
This week we will be emphasising to the students how important it is not to put other people at risk. We will be explaining that the very young, very old and people with respiratory problems are the most vulnerable to the virus. For this reason, they should think about their contact with people in these groups and make sure that they maintain the best hygiene routines to help protect others.
We will be praying at school for all of those health workers who are working to protect us at the moment, and if there are any health professionals reading this, then we would like to thank you for all you are doing to keep others safe.
Yours faithfully,
Mr Austen Hindman, Head Teacher