11^th January 2021

Dear Parents and Carers,

 

I hope you are all well and the second week of remote learning is going as smoothly as possible; we appreciate that these are exceptional circumstances and that these are also exceptional ways of delivering teaching content. All we ask is that you try your best and do as much as you are able to.  We are all in a situation where most of our children will need to be caught up and we, as a school, will be fully prepared for that when we can resume school, as it normally would be. 

 

As well as this letter, we have uploaded a letter for you all from Heather Flinders (click here), which also highlights the graveness of the situation we are in and the state of the pandemic at this moment in time. Following on from our own assessment of the situation and the advice and guidance we have been given, we will be looking carefully at the criteria for critical workers. The whole objective of this lockdown is to reduce the number of children in school to limit movement of people and the opportunity the virus has to spread. The guidance is that where children can be at home and only one parent is a critical worker, then those children should be at home. This is to keep you and your family safe as well as everybody within our community. Please help us to do this. I appreciate that this is not easy if you are working from home; however, the safety of everybody concerned has to be our main priority. Please keep your children at home if you are able to. 

 

Professor Chris Witty has today also emphasised that need to follow the guidance that has been put in place and that applying the rules liberally in this instance is not what is needed. He also emphasised that the next few weeks will probably be the worst it has ever been and that the NHS is now in a critical state. This means that should any of us need emergency treatment for whatever ailments or accidents we have, we will most probably be unable to receive it. This goes for old and young alike. The duty we have to play in this is doing our best to keep our children home and stay at home ourselves to ensure that we do not endanger ourselves, or, more worryingly, others through our own actions. 

 

In order to support the work of critical and frontline workers, we will now be asking for evidence of each requested place at school. We have never asked for proof, but in order to ensure that only those that cannot be cared for at home are in school, we will now be doing so. We may also be contacting some of you who have not previously provided evidence of being a critical worker to do so. If you are working from home, the guidance stipulates you must have your children at home as it is safer to do so. Therefore, even if you are a critical worker;

 

• If your child(ren) can remain at home rather than attend school, on some or all days, then they should

• Only use the offer of provision when it is crucial to enable you to undertake your critical role

 

If you have children at school at the moment, please be advised that you may receive a call in the following days to confirm which critical service you provide and that there is nobody at home to care for your children. Children of critical workers working from home should remain at home with their parents. Please help us by being responsible and doing your part to save lives. 

 

Thank you to all of you for your patience, cooperation and support during this time. These are all of our children and, as a community, it is paramount that we put the needs of everybody at the fore of all decisions we make; sacrifices are never easy, but what is right is never the smoothest path. Please continue to help us with this. 

 

As always, with our very best wishes, 

 

   

Zakia Khatun