It has been so lovely seeing the children back today and to have the whole school full of happiness and smiles after so long! The staff have loved having the children back and seeing their old classes for a day or two.
Thank you all so much for following the arrangements we put in place to try and keep everyone safe. Things didn't work quite how we anticipated at all the entrances, so we are going to adjust tomorrow as follows:
Please keep to the timings and gates that you have been given, but bring your child into the playground, drop them off to your child's teacher and walk out following the staff's directions. This should avoid the congestion we had on the pavements at some of the entrances today.
When picking up, again come into the playground at the time and through the gate given, pick up your child and go out through the same gate.
If you are waiting for a different slot for a different child, please remember to wait in a socially distant manner.
There are a few things to note:
We have allowed 15 minute time slots, so you can arrive and collect anytime within these 15 minutes to avoid too many people at the same time. For example, if your time is 8.30, you can arrive from 8.30 to 8.45 (this then leaves 5 mins clear before the next group arrives).
This also means that if you have a child in both slots, you can leave one at 8.45 and then the other at 8.50 to avoid too much waiting around.
Please bring as little as possible into school - the children have all been given individual pencil cases in their classrooms, so there is no need to bring in anything apart from lunch, water bottles and a coat.
Although it is very tempting to meet and talk to other parents as usual, please do try to respect the social distancing guidelines: there should be enough space to queue in a socially distant manner.
We are looking at how we can make this system better, so thank you to everyone who has given us suggestions. It is very new to all of us! As we find more efficient and better ways, we will let you know and will change the arrangements as necessary.
Some parents have asked for more details about symptoms of Coronavirus, so the most useful thing is to signpost you to the NHS website set up specifically for this:
The main symptoms of coronavirus are:
a high temperature – this means you feel hot to touch on your chest or back (you do not need to measure your temperature)
a new, continuous cough – this means coughing a lot for more than an hour, or 3 or more coughing episodes in 24 hours (if you usually have a cough, it may be worse than usual)
a loss or change to your sense of smell or taste – this means you've noticed you cannot smell or taste anything, or things smell or taste different to normal
"In other news", we welcome back Mrs Trish Vaughan to Y1 after a year away and also Mr Thomas Durack to Y5, who although started with us in February, hardly had any teaching time with his class before the lockdown happened.
I wish you all the best for a very successful new school year.
Michael Lobo
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