4 weeks down!

Firstly, thank you for all the messages I received after the message I sent out on Sunday. It is so important to all of us here that you know what an amazing job you are all doing and how we understand the pressures you are under. I know the news that school will not be back until at least the 8^th March will have added to parents’ worries, but as I said in my message on Sunday, we will get through this together.

This week we held our first trust-wide ‘Wellbeing Wednesday’ where we all went screen free for the day. It was lovely to see all the creative things that the children got up to both at home and in school. The staff were also treated to a sweet treat from Roasty Coffee on Monday in recognition of how hard they are all working. Whilst we all still hope for a return to school soon, we now know that we will not be back straight after the holidays with Boris announcing that there will not be a return before the 8^th March.  We will hold another wellbeing Wednesday on 10^th February and we will continue to find ways to make everyone still feel connected to our school. We already have contingency plans in place for World Book Day (4th March) and will send out a letter detailing our plans before we break up.

We have now held daily Zoom meets for the past two weeks and I have managed to join every Key Stage One class for a story. It has been so wonderful to see the children smiling away, clearly so happy to be able to see and speak to us. I have also attended a Zoom assembly for each year group and have had the pleasure of playing such games as – guess the person from the baby photo, a scavenger hunt and an emoji quiz. These sessions are so important to maintain our sense of community whilst we cannot all be together.

We are pleased to announce that as an additional means of keeping everyone safe, our staff will be offered twice-weekly lateral flow tests for COVID-19 starting this Sunday. This is a voluntary scheme that aims to pick up those who are asymptomatic so that they can isolate. We will be taking these tests on a Sunday and Wednesday evening. Please note that where we have a positive test result, as with any positive result, all contacts of that person will be expected to isolate for 10 days. We will notify parents through our text messaging service and then follow this up with a letter via email. Remote learning will be provided for those expected to isolate. There may be some disruption to the remote education offer if a member of staff should subsequently become ill.

Finally, I would like to thank you all for the wonderful emails of support and thanks that we have received over the past 4 weeks. I cannot tell you how much these mean to us all and how they keep us going. We even received 4 hampers for the staffroom from Jovan’s family, which was a very generous gift for all our staff.

Stay safe

Mrs Crowther