19th June 2020
Dear Parent/Guardian,
I am writing to you to try to bring a bit of clarity to what is an ever changing situation at government, county and also even at individual school level. We are therefore trying to give information to parents when it is as certain as we can possibly determine.
As a result of in depth risks assessments, we are now on a phasing in of bubble classrooms which will take us to the end of the year. Each of the bubble groups will only be with a teacher / teaching assistant who has not been teaching another group, but could be from a new teacher who has previously been working from home, hence they will not have come into contact with other children from another bubble. Some bubbles may be sub dived to create smaller groups of children, but they will still be taught by teachers who have not been with other groups.
I do understand many of our parent’s positions with having to return to work and that the school’s start and finish times may affect them. This then means that parents have to negotiate with their employer due to the schooling situation. The government are strongly encouraging employers to be flexible and to try to work around family situations such as ours, since schools can only open if it is safe to do so. As part of our risk assessment we have had to stagger the start of the day and end pick up points to ensure that bubbles don’t cross over.
We are also trying to think of the best way we can bring back Year 6 at some point before the end of the year, and at the same time adhere to DFE guidance. The difficulty we are facing with this is to be able to keep to the 2m social distancing rule whilst keeping the school open for critical worker family children and vulnerable pupils. We are currently looking at a number of options to be able to do this and I will update you on this as soon as I can.
Just to confirm that drop off and pick up times are as follows: (For those critical worker children and vulnerable pupils currently in school.)
Bubble 1: 8:50am & pick up at: 3:05pm
Bubble 2: 9:00am & pick up at: 3:15pm
Bubble 3: 9:10am & pick up at: 2:55pm
Bubble 4: 9:20am & pick up at: 2:45pm
Bubble 5: 8:40am (This has changed as we have acted on requests from parents) pick up at: 2:35pm
Please note that the school office will contact you if your child’s bubble is sub dived and your child changes to a different bubble. This would be with the same children and with a teacher that has not taught a previous group of children.
If there any questions regarding the above, please do not hesitate to contact me.
Regards
M Proctor
Headteacher