Dear Parents and Carers,

I’m sure by now, you are all aware that we have had a number of COVID-19 cases within the school recently, which has triggered the need for what is known as ‘stepped-up measures’ to be implemented temporarily, throughout school, in order to try to control transmission across the all three key stages. This decision has been taken in conjunction with and following advice from the Health Protection Hub and follows the advice within the Government’s Contingency Framework for schools.

These measures are additional to the fundamental controls we already have in place covering issues such as ventilation, cleaning and handwashing. The additional control measures have been designed to have minimal impact on your child’s education, and are as follows:

*Children once again eating in their classrooms, not mixing in the hall for lunch.
*Whole school assemblies reverting back to TEAMS, rather than face to face in the hall.
*Children playing in separate areas of the school grounds, in their year groups – no mixing of children across year groups (at break or lunch times).
*Staff will resume wearing face coverings in communal areas and during meet and greet and collection times. It would be appreciated if parents did the same when in close contact with staff e.g. talking to your child’s teacher at the end of the day.
*All clubs and wrap around care (Breakfast Clubs and WASP) WILL REMAIN OPEN FOR NOW as the numbers of pupils are small and detailed registers are kept. However, this will be reviewed within the new few weeks. If numbers of positive cases continue to rise, more preventative measures may need to be implemented.

We will continue to liaise with the Health Protection Hub and will advise you again when these controls are lifted.

As always, please ensure you are vigilant for symptoms and if your child does display symptoms, please keep them off school and book them a COVID test using this link: Get a free PCR test to check if you have coronavirus (COVID-19) – GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)

Many thanks for your continued support in helping us to do everything we can to reduce the numbers of children and staff contracting Covid.

Mrs C