COVID Letter 16th March 2020

 

 

 

16^th March 2020

 

Dear Parents/Carers,

 

As you will have heard in the news, Coronavirus (COVID-19) is beginning to spread in the UK and there have been confirmed cases in Warwickshire. You will also have seen that schools are closing elsewhere in Europe and Ireland but that is not the approach that the Government is advising for schools in the UK.

 

I therefore wanted to write to you to give you my assurance that The Dassett C of E Primary School is taking all the precautions necessary in order to protect children and staff.

 

We are in regular contact with Public Health and the Warwickshire County Council, and are acting in accordance with nationally recommended advice. Whilst it is clearly a very concerning situation for all families, the risk remains low to individuals in the UK and the advice from the Government is that “wherever possible we should be carrying on as normal which will be best for our children and young people, and our communities.”

 

The school will, of course, follow the national guidance but, at the same time, we are planning to make sure we are well prepared for all eventualities. We are, for example, looking into how we can continue to ensure that children receive some level of schooling in the event of schools having to close for a short period. In the event of school closure, we will issue the children with learning to complete at home. We may provide you with links so that you may access online learning. We may also use seesaw to post learning. We will let you know more, if this should happen. With regards to homework, please message the school only if you do not have internet access at home and we will do our best to make alternative arrangements for these children.

 

In order to limit the amount of contact children have with adults, we have decided to take certain actions. We are also limiting the contact that children have with each other, in larger groups, inside. We have also introduced new hygiene practices.

 

 

 

• Additional school cleaning and hygiene precautions have been put in place. All pupils are asked to wash their hands on arrival in school. They will also be asked to wash their hands before they leave school, from today. Children have had lessons in how to wash their hands effectively and are doing a great job. You may send in hand cream for your child if you wish but not anti-bacterial gel. Please name any tubes.

 

• Parents’ Consultation Evenings are cancelled on the 24^th, 25^th and 26^th March.  We hope to reschedule these as soon as possible in the Summer term and will let you know.

 

• Adult visitors into school will be kept to a necessary minimum but music lessons are to continue with visiting music teachers.

• Whole school gatherings for Collective Worship, class assemblies, Easter Services, plays, etc. are cancelled.

 

• School photographs will go ahead on Thursday 19th March.

 

• Trips - further information to follow but we plan on these going ahead. If anything changes with regard to planned trips we will let you know as soon as possible. We won’t be planning any further trips at this time however.

 

• After school activity clubs, run by outside providers, will continue.

 

• The Friends of Dassett Cake sale on Friday (20th) is cancelled. The next planned FOD event will be the Movie Night on Friday 1st May.

 

All adult visitors to school will be asked to wash their hands as our children are being asked to. Please support us in this.

 

Parents who require a face-to face meetings in school should contact the office to make an appointment first.

 

All other school to home communication will now be done via email. Please make sure that we have an up-to-date email address. If at present you do not receive the school newsletter on a Friday then this means that we do not have an email address for you that works, so please contact us and we will try, together, to rectify this.

 

If your child develops a temperature or cough please follow the guidelines and keep them at home.

 

There is a lot of misinformation online about CoronaVirus and much of it is not helpful. Not only is it inaccurate but it serves to increase anxiety and distress unnecessarily. We would recommend you look at the following trusted sources of information to keep yourself informed of all the latest information and advice:

 

· Detailed information and advice for the public and returning travellers can be found on the NHS.uk website (and will be regularly updated):  www.nhs.uk/coronavirus

 

 

· Further information for the public about the situation can be found here (and will be regularly updated): www.gov.uk/guidance/wuhan-novel-coronavirus-information-for-the-public . This will advise you on what you should do if any of your family start to show symptoms.

 

I hope that this clarifies the current situation. If you have any questions or concerns, please feel that you can call the school to talk to myself or a senior member of staff.

 

Many thanks for your co-operation at this ever changing time.

 

 

 

 

Miss S Corry

Head Teacher