Update 5th January

Dear Parents,
We hope you are well and adjusting to the new routines following yesterday’s announcements about the third national lockdown. Our staff are working hard to ensure that upper KS2 children receive their logins for Google Classroom as quickly as possible, so that children can access their learning remotely and interactively. Our Trust is also being proactive in issuing devices for children in families eligible for Pupil Premium in order to support remote learning. Eligible children in Years 5 and 6 have already been issued with Chromebooks, with additional devices for those pupils in YR-Y4 being followed up today.

We are still awaiting the delivery of a class set of Chromebooks which will be used by children working in school to support their learning and access to Google Classroom. Unfortunately, due to the sudden lockdown announcement, the recent delivery intended for this purpose have had to be reallocated for children eligible for Pupil Premium. The Trust has placed a new order for our class set of Chromebooks.

As you are aware, our school is still open to vulnerable children and Critical Workers’ children, as defined by the information you received yesterday. Thank you to those of you who quickly processed the survey in order for us to assess the number of eligible children we need to teach within school. If it proves necessary, we may need to ask for simple evidence that the parent in question is a critical worker, such as their work ID badge or pay slip.

Schools are still required to monitor attendance. As such, we need to set up our registers to monitor the safe arrival of pupils expected in school day by day. All families with vulnerable children, parents who are critical workers should let school know without delay if their child will not be attending. When a notification of an absence is reported, the school will grant a leave of absence given the exceptional circumstances. All pupils who are not expected to be in school will be marked as Code X. They are not attending because they are following public health advice.

We would be grateful if you would indicate via School Gateway, which days you require your child(ren) to be in school, in line with the days you are working as a critical worker and have no other childcare at home.

Additionally, we have had several enquiries about nursery provision remaining open. As a primary school which offers pre-school provision for children from age 2, we are applying the same lockdown rules throughout the school i.e. If you or your partner is a key worker, or if your child is classed as vulnerable, then the school and pre-school will remain open, otherwise, children are expected to remain at home, following public health guidance.
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Thank you for your continued support during these challenging times.
With kind regards
Elizabeth Underwood and Sarah Marvin
Executive Headteacher       Head of School