9th 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