School Closure Letter - July 2021

Monday July 19th 2021

Dear parents,

I am sure you will be aware of the rising number of people testing positive for COVID 19 nationally, locally and within our school community. Unfortunately, due to the increasing number of staff being asked to isolate we find ourselves struggling to ensure the school can run safely. While we have until now, done everything we could to remain open to the classes and staff that are well enough to be here, having sought advice from both PHE and from the local authority we have been advised that it is simply not safe to remain open. Therefore, we are writing to inform you that the last day of face to face school for all children will be today Monday the 19th of July. We are of course absolutely devastated, this is not how we wanted to end what has been a very challenging year for our children and their families.

Over the next week staff will continue to work online providing a structure to the school day and some fun activities for the children to be doing while at home. The nursery class teacher will be online at 9am each day to meet and greet the children and run a small online session with the children being set activities for the morning. As this is Year 6’s final week in school, they will not follow this timetable (Please see below for further details for the Year 6 class)

Please see suggested timetable below for Reception through to Year 5 only

Tomorrow is ‘Meet your new teacher morning’ from 9:30am – 10:30am, this will still take place virtually and I urge you to ensure your child is online to talk to their new teachers and support staff. Teacher’s will join the children in their current classrooms and the children will be able to ask them any questions they may have about next year.

As you will be aware this is Year 6’s final week in school. The children celebrated their final year with a fantastic week of activities a few weeks ago, but they have been working on a school performance over the last few weeks which we were hoping to be able to share with parents. Sadly, this can now not take place as planned. We will however, be asking year 6 to come into school on Tuesday 20th of July in the afternoon and we will be filming the performance, so that parents will be able to watch from their own homes at a later date. This is the plan as of today, Monday 19th of July. If nothing changes we would ask that the children arrive in school tomorrow by 1pm and that they enter through the main office area. The children will be ready for collecting at 3pm, again from the main reception area. Please note, should we receive information of a positive covid test from within this class, we will be forced to cancel the performance and will inform you of this in the morning. Year 6 will also have an assembly online on Wednesday 21st of July at 10.30am. A Google Meet link will be sent to you for you and your family to join. We will not be expecting Year 6 to follow the timetable, but they will be sent home with access to some fun activities which they can do online.

Children who are in receipt of free school meals will receive additional vouchers for this period.

I know for many of you at home, this will be a particularly challenging time, especially where you as parents are working from home as well. We are aware of this and will do everything we can to help and ensure that your son/daughter has the most enjoyable experience that they could do over the next week.

Look after yourself, stay safe

Yours faithfully

Marais Leenders

Executive Headteacher