Update on Key Worker Information

Dear Parents and Carers

The national priority at the moment is to do everything we can to control the spread of COVID 19 and ensure the safety and well being of ALL people.

The most important advice is that where possible everybody should stay at home, this includes ALL children regardless of the role their parent has.

We need our country to function as well as possible during this global crisis and so key workers whose role is critical  to the COVID-19 response must still be able to work.

 The government has asked parents to keep their children at home wherever possible and asked schools to remain open only for those children who absolutely need to attend. We are aware that some schools will not be open and ask parents to support us so that we can be one of the schools that can remain open throughout this crisis. 

As a school we have many staff who are unable to come in. It will be a daily challenge for our school to have enough staff to support the key worker's children. However, we will do our very best to remain open as long as we possibly can, but we ask parents to be as supportive as possible to our school and please only ask us for this support if you are a key worker and have no other option for child care.

We understand these are incredibly challenging and worrying times for all our families but we remain concerned as to how we would manage large numbers of children.

It is important to note our priority will be the care, not the education of children. There will be no formal teaching. The children will not be expected to wear school uniform and although not ideal, it will be different staff and locations around the school that will have to be altered daily depending on the staff we have available.

We are already in discussion with other schools and at some point it is likely to be a central school that this child care option is available in.

Please remember the guidance towards children and family members displaying a high temperature and or persistent cough remains the same and they MUST NOT be sent in.

School will be open from 8.45am to 3.15pm. The children who absolutely have to be here should only be here for the hours their key worker parent is working and they must be signed in by an adult at the main office. As it is only the hours that parents are working, we are expecting the drop offs of children to be staggered and not to have a bulge of children arrive at 8.45am and to leave at 3.15pm. We have a legal requirement to ensure the safety and well being of all in our care. If at any point we believe this is compromised we will have to make the decision to close the school even for those key workers.

It is incredible important therefore, that you only use us if you HAVE to. We do not want to be in the position of having to send children away from us next week. We have already been asked to support families where we do not feel that their role is critical in this crisis, which is adding further pressure to the demand and we are being placed in an uncomfortable position. We are also aware that we do have families whose role is critical, however they are managing without our support and we fully appreciate this.

Thank you for your support and understanding in this. Please understand our priority remains the safety and well being of our children, families and staff.

Best wishes,

Mrs Keith

Headteacher