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23rd September 2020
Dear Parents/Carers
Attached is a letter that we have been asked to distribute to yourselves by the Department of Education concerning what are the main recognisable symptoms of Coronavirus and at what point you should take yourself or your child to be tested.
Some of you may be aware that a local special school, Priory Woods School and Arts College in Middlesbrough, has recently shut for a period of time to contain a potential outbreak of Coronavirus within the school. I know having spoken to people involved in the decision making that this decision was not taken lightly. However, as a special school with a number of vulnerable learners, who are transported in on mixed transport and can struggle with social distancing we have to have tighter controls around the potential spread of infection within school compared to our mainstream counterparts.
If we have a positive case within school we will inform all parents/guardians of this and will also let you know whether your child should self-isolate as a result of this. If your child is not in the bubble or bus group of the person who tested positive your child will be free to attend school and we will do everything within our power to ensure that the case is hopefully one in isolation. However, at this point we would be supportive of any parent who felt that as a result of this their child was too vulnerable to attend.
If we have more than one case across the school we will be in a challenging situation. At this point, I could not say exactly what our response would be, however I can assure you that the well-being of the students and staff would be at the forefront of our decision making. This could ultimately result in the partial or the full closure of school for a fixed period of time in order to ensure that the virus does not spread any further. This decision will be made by school staff in conjunction with Public Health England, taking into account the unique nature of our school.
I hope that should this situation arise that you would support us in any judgement calls that we make, confident that any decisions will be based upon what we consider to be the best interests of your child.
Thank you for your continued support
Paul McLean
Head Teacher9th September 2020
Dear Parents/Carers
The students have settled back into school fantastically well. It has been fantastic to see so many of our students back and so happy to be here. We have been delivering our usual curriculum alongside a recovery curriculum where we have provided the opportunity to talk about and rationalise the feelings associated with the lockdown experience.
At the present time we are having to be particularly vigilant in relation to our response to any illness. Previously, we would have kept children in school who had ‘just a cold’ but at this present time I hope you understand why this cannot be the case. We have some vulnerable learners, staff and families within school and we cannot afford to take any chances in relation to this.
Our risk assessment currently stipulates that if a child displays two or more symptoms we would require you to take your child for a Covid test in order for them to return to school. We will inform you if we feel this is the case. If they are unable to have a test or you choose not to take them they will have to remain absent from school for 14 days. If a child is displaying one symptom or is just generally unwell we would recommend that you take them for a Covid test, but other than that they may return once the symptoms of illness have disappeared.
If we do have any positive cases in school we will work alongside Public Health England to decide which areas of school, if not all, will be closed as a result. This decision will be made externally.
There may be a time within school where we will have to send a group of students home due to staffing difficulties within school. Obviously as other children are sent home from school staff may be required to provide childcare, similarly through track and trace people may be told to self-isolate for 14 days. This potentially could lead to a problem where we have insufficient staffing in order to keep certain groups safe. We would obviously contact you at the time if this occurs. Hopefully, this will never need to happen but I wanted to make you aware of the possibility of this occurring.
I know these are strange and unprecedented times at the moment and we have to act accordingly. We want to continue to make school as safe a place as possible for everyone, whilst still welcoming as many students as we can through our doors every day. I hope you can appreciate some of the challenges we are currently facing and can support us in what we are trying to do.
I hope this letter finds you all well.
Paul McLean
Head Teacher
Kirkleatham Hall School