Par­ent home: Lat­est news

Dear Par­ents and Carers,

Masks:

You will be aware that the Gov­ern­ment announced some updates to the Covid guid­ance for schools, which will start from Mon­day 17th May. The main adjust­ment for our school com­mu­nity is regard­ing the use of face cov­er­ings or masks which is as follows:

Face cov­er­ings will no longer be rec­om­mended for pupils and stu­dents in class­rooms or com­mu­nal areas, in all schools and FE providers. Face cov­er­ings will also no longer be rec­om­mended for staff in class­rooms. In all schools and FE providers, we con­tinue to rec­om­mend that face cov­er­ings should be worn by staff and vis­i­tors in sit­u­a­tions out­side of class­rooms where social dis­tanc­ing is not pos­si­ble (for exam­ple, when mov­ing around in cor­ri­dors and com­mu­nal areas).

The rein­tro­duc­tion of face cov­er­ings for pupils, stu­dents or staff may be advised for a tem­po­rary period in response to par­tic­u­lar localised out­breaks, includ­ing vari­ants of con­cern. In all cases, any edu­ca­tional draw­backs should be bal­anced with the ben­e­fits of man­ag­ing transmission.

From Mon­day 17th May there­fore, we will not be ask­ing stu­dents to wear masks around the site or in class. Any stu­dent who wishes to con­tinue wear­ing a mask will be able to do so Staff will be asked to con­tinue to wear masks when mov­ing around the site where social dis­tanc­ing is not pos­si­ble, in line with the guidance.

We will con­tinue to oper­ate all other risk mit­i­ga­tion mea­sures such as year group bub­bles and stag­gered timeta­bles, reg­u­lar sani­tis­ing, one way sys­tems and wip­ing down surfaces.

For now, we need to con­tinue to ask that parents/​carers do not come on site with­out prior arrange­ment and where pos­si­ble, com­mu­ni­ca­tions with the school take place by tele­phone or email.

Thank you for your con­tin­ued sup­port — we look for­ward to a grad­ual move back towards ‘nor­mal­ity’ in the com­ing weeks and months.

E-​Scooters:

In recent weeks we have had a num­ber of reports of stu­dents using elec­tric scoot­ers or e-​scooters on pub­lic roads and path­ways. This is often with­out any hel­met or pro­tec­tion and in some cases, in a very dan­ger­ous man­ner includ­ing with more than one per­son on the scooter. Clearly this is a huge worry and we want to ensure our stu­dents are mak­ing safe and respon­si­ble choices. It is ille­gal to use e-​scooters on pub­lic roads, on pave­ments, in cycle lanes and in pedestrian-​only areas. Please talk to your child, even if they do not own an elec­tric scooter, about the dan­gers of using these in pub­lic areas and espe­cially on pub­lic roads. We do not allow these in school but we are equally wor­ried about their use beyond our premises.

Best wishes,

Vicky Willis

Head­teacher.