Returning your child to school – information for Parents
Posted on June 2, 2020 | By Mr Cole | 2 responses
Background
The Government has announced that children in Preschool, Reception, Year 1 and Year 6 should now return to school. It remains up to each family whether to send their children back or not.
In response, the school has made substantial changes to the physical school environment and to the staffing structure to facilitate this. We have implemented a full Risk Assessment in line with Devon County Council guidance which has been ratified by the Governing Body and has been accepted by the County Council. The arrangements have been put in place to ensure as far as we are able that your child is safe here at school and that the chances of them contracting or spreading Covid-19 are very much reduced.
The Risk Assessment may be found here: DCC_C19 Return to school risk assessment (25.05.2020)
If you have any questions about returning your child to school, we strongly encourage you to discuss this with the Headteacher, by phone, by email or by commenting on this post below.
Making the decision to Return your Child
We know that making the decision to return you child is a difficult one for many reasons, and recognise that some parents will want to “wait and see” for a little while before making those decisions.
However, in order for the school to safely accept your child back into the school we may need to make adaptations to our staff structures and physical space. This includes preserving the integrity of each bubble of 15 children and ensuring that staff who are allocated to any new Bubble do not have an elevated risk of spreading Covid-19 from their old bubble to their new one. These arrangements take time.
Therefore, we normally need a full week’s notice before we can re-admit your child to the school. It is important you don’t just send them in and assume we will be able to accommodate them.
Children returning to school will start on the Monday of any week unless agreed with the Headteacher beforehand owing to exceptional circumstances.
Please use the form here to indicate that you would like to return your child to the school: Indication of Return to School form
Other Year Groups
At the present time, the Government has not released any plans for re-admission for children in Years 2, 3, 4 or 5. As long as we have the staff resources to continue our Remote Learning in its present form we will do so, but if demand for in-school provision continues to increase and we have to bring more staff on site in a full time capacity, this will inevitably diminish. However, we will continue to offer Remote Learning via Google Classroom for all children up to the end of the summer term in some form.
If Government plans change with regard to Years 2, 3, 4 and 5 we will update our response at that time.
So does that mean we have to send them in, or do we still have a choice in the matter?
Hi, Sarah. The position hasn’t changed at all – you can still choose what is best for you and for your child. However, we’re aware that some families wanted to wait a couple of weeks before making a decision, and try to get their children to have at least some school time before the summer holidays. This is the way for parents to arrange it. From a school point of view, it’s just too difficult to accept children turning up without notice at the moment whilst sticking within the guidelines. I hope that helps, M.