Dear Parents,

The government released who comes under the banner of key workers and vulnerable children very early this morning.

The advice remains the same: “The most recent scientific advice on how to further limit the spread of COVID-19 is clear.  If children can stay safely at home, they should, to limit the chance of the virus spreading.”

There is further guidance on Social Distancing that we should all be following:
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/covid-19-guidance-on-social-distancing-and-for-vulnerable-people/guidance-on-social-distancing-for-everyone-in-the-uk-and-protecting-older-people-and-vulnerable-adults.

The link above explains how we should all be careful of social contact, movement and travel, to minimise the spread of this virus.  Not only do we have a duty of care for our children and families here, but also to our staff and their families too, and we have to minimise contact as much as possible following this guidance.

The most recent guidelines for maintaining schools can be found here:
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/coronavirus-covid-19-maintaining-educational-provision/guidance-for-schools-colleges-and-local-authorities-on-maintaining-educational-provision

Point 4 says: “Parents should also do everything they can to ensure children are not mixing socially in a way which can continue to spread the virus. They should observe the same social distancing principles as adults.”

Being a school where children mix socially, means that we cannot guarantee this.

Many parents working in the identified critical sectors may also be able to ensure their child is kept at home.  Every child who can be safely cared for at home, should be.  Please remember that this is an offer to parents and carers and there is no requirement for parents and carers to send their children to school if they do not need or wish to do so.  Please bear in mind that we will not be following a normal day or curriculum.  We have been mandated to provide care for children of critical workers and we will mostly follow the same plans that we have written and will place on the school’s website (more details to follow on that).

 

The list of key workers includes:

Health and social care

This includes but is not limited to doctors, nurses, midwives, paramedics, social workers, care workers, and other frontline health and social care staff including volunteers; the support and specialist staff required to maintain the UK’s health and social care sector; those working as part of the health and social care supply chain, including producers and distributors of medicines and medical and personal protective equipment.

Education and childcare

This includes nursery and teaching staff, social workers and those specialist education professionals who must remain active during the COVID-19 response to deliver this approach.

Key public services

This includes those essential to the running of the justice system, religious staff, charities and workers delivering key frontline services, those responsible for the management of the deceased, and journalists and broadcasters who are providing public service broadcasting.

Local and national government

This only includes those administrative occupations essential to the effective delivery of the COVID-19 response or delivering essential public services such as the payment of benefits, including in government agencies and arms length bodies.

Food and other necessary goods

This includes those involved in food production, processing, distribution, sale and delivery as well as those essential to the provision of other key goods (for example hygienic and veterinary medicines).

Public safety and national security

This includes police and support staff, Ministry of Defence civilians, contractor and armed forces personnel (those critical to the delivery of key defence and national security outputs and essential to the response to the COVID-19 pandemic), fire and rescue service employees (including support staff), National Crime Agency staff, those maintaining border security, prison and probation staff and other national security roles, including those overseas.

Transport

This includes those who will keep the air, water, road and rail passenger and freight transport modes operating during the COVID-19 response, including those working on transport systems through which supply chains pass.

Utilities, communication and financial services

This includes staff needed for essential financial services provision (including but not limited to workers in banks, building societies and financial market infrastructure), the oil, gas, electricity and water sectors (including sewerage), information technology and data infrastructure sector and primary industry supplies to continue during the COVID-19 response, as well as key staff working in the civil nuclear, chemicals, telecommunications (including but not limited to network operations, field engineering, call centre staff, IT and data infrastructure, 999 and 111 critical services), postal services and delivery, payments providers and waste disposal sectors.

The full guidance for parents can be found here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/closure-of-educational-settings-information-for-parents-and-carers/closure-of-educational-settings-information-for-parents-and-carers

 

We know our parents, and we’ve had conversations with many of you about your job and role.  I will be contacting those parents today.

Despite receiving advice that all schools should fully close on Monday to enable us to actually plan for this history-defining change to the education sector, we do plan to stay open with skeleton staff.

We now await some guidance from the Government about provision over the Easter break for Key Workers, and we will provide information when we can.

Please be patient as we try to organise all this in a very limited time frame.

 

Best wishes,
Julian Thomas