I would like to start this message by thanking our entire school community for their support with the rise in Covid cases within the school. As it stands, we have only had one ‘outbreak’ and with the extra measures that we put in place, this remained contained to the one class. The children of that class have been simply amazing and shown such a mature attitude. They have coped so well with all the changes – eating in class, not mixing and only having one part of the playground to play in. They have not complained once! I am pleased to say that they will be returning to ‘normal’ as of Monday as the outbreak has been contained. It was always inevitable with the removal of restrictions and subsequent increase of contacts that we would see an increase in positive cases in school and we continue with handwashing and regular cleaning to mitigate this. We have also kept our staggered lunch and break times to minimise contacts. For the time being, we will also not return to whole school assemblies in the hall.

I am pleased to say that Joanna is back in our Key Stage One office from today- we have really missed her. Many thanks for your patience whilst we operated on a limited staffing.

Watch out over the next few weeks for information about booking an appointment for our online parents’ evening on the 11th and 12th October. This will be a chance to discuss how your child has settled into school after the summer. We have decided to keep this one online given the increase in positive cases within the community. We intend on our Easter parents’ evening being in person if cases permit.

We are also busy planning the Halloween disco with FOGS. We run three separate discos (KS1 including Reception, Y3/4 and Y5/6) and have sought Public Health advice about how to make the event as covid secure as possible. This is scheduled for the last day of the half term- Friday 22nd October which is the day that Y5 return from their residential. More information will follow in due course. Should we see a huge increase in community transmission, or have another outbreak in school, it may be necessary to cancel the event. If this were to happen, we would invite the children to come into school on Wednesday 20th in their costumes and would hold in-class discos so that they don’t miss out. There is a meeting at 7pm in the Rose and Crown on Monday for anyone who would like to get involved in planning this event- it would be great to see lots of new faces there.

Last week our new School Council were democratically elected by their peers. Once 5A have also held their elections, I will hold our first School Council meeting to find out what areas they would like to focus on this year. Well done to all who stood up and gave a speech to their class- I’m certain you all made it a very difficult decision for your class. We believe in giving our children a voice and whilst the School Council is one way of doing this, we are always looking for other opportunities. You will notice on the fence around KS1 that our Year 1 children have produced some fabulous posters to remind the people of Greetland not to drop litter- well done Year 1.

We have registered to be part of Morrisons Good to Grow scheme. From September, for every £10 spent in store or online, you’ll get one Grow Token that we can then redeem for a wide range of gardening and growing equipment. Please download the MyMorrisons app to take part.

Finally, I would like to thank you all for the well-wishes I have received. I will be joining our assembly on Zoom this afternoon and the leadership team have kept me up to date with all that is going on in school. I can’t wait to get back on Wednesday.

Have a lovely weekend,

Mrs Crowther