I hope you’ve all had a lovely weekend and have been and are still enjoying the snow!
As I am sure some of you will have heard, we have actually closed the critical worker and vulnerable child provision today due to the snow and ice and the difficulties of getting a full complement of staff in to support the school bubbles. We will be open as normal tomorrow.
You may also have heard that, this weekend, we have had a positive case of Coronavirus confirmed within our Year 5 and 6 bubble. These children, and associated staff, will not be coming into school now until February 1st and will be self-isolating. This obviously does not affect your children, if they have been learning from home but I just wanted to keep you updated. Remote learning will not be affected in any way. There may just be more Year 5 and 6 children on the Zoom calls!I know that you are all very busy with remote learning and we are really pleased with the levels of engagement from the vast majority of children. Today of all days though, I would also urge you, where possible, to let your children take advantage of the beautiful snow and weather! There will be plenty of time to catch up on remote learning and there may not be as many opportunities to go and play in the snow! Later today, I will be sending the teachers a potential Art lesson to upload onto the Google classrooms. I would like to stress that this is only to be done if, and when, the children want to. It is not meant to create any extra pressure but may offer a respite from Reading, Writing, Maths and Topic and provides an opportunity to have some screen ‘down time’.
You may have heard in the press over the last few days that, from this week, all primary school staff will be given lateral flow tests to use at home on a weekly basis. We are really pleased with this development as it should allow us to pick up any asymptomatic cases among our staff. We will keep you updated with how this goes. We really hope it will contribute to the wider opening of schools about which we still do not know any more than you…although a period of two weeks’ notice has been promised! As soon as I hear anything, I will let you know.
As always, please come back to me if you have any questions or concerns.