As you’ll be aware, the government has announced that schools should fully reopen from the start of the upcoming autumn term. They have decided this on the basis of:
- The prevalence of coronavirus decreasing
- The new NHS test and trace system being in place
- More clarity about the measures that need to be in place to create safe environments in schools
- Time out of school being detrimental to children’s development
- The low risk to children of becoming severely ill from coronavirus
This means we are planning to open to all of our children in September. We are looking forward to welcoming everyone back and are working hard to make the school a safe, enjoyable and happy environment.
We are disappointed that we haven’t been able to do transition in the normal way and that we haven’t had the opportunity to meet you all yet! However we have liaised with nursery providers and received information from them.
We wanted to get in touch to explain what you can expect from us and what we will expect from all of our children and parents/carers.
In September we have planned a transition period for our new Reception starters as follows:
- Friday 11th September: Children will come to school for the morning session. Please bring your child to school for 9.30a.m. This will give us the opportunity to get the rest of the school in and enable us to focus on our new starters. Reception Class staff will greet you at the gate and let you know what to do. You will need to collect your child at 11.30a.m. please.
- Week beginning 14th September: Children will be in school for the whole of the morning session and stay for lunch. Start times will be 8.30a.m. and collection time will be 12.30p.m. (see table below for all year groups staggered start times)
- Week beginning 21st September: Children will be in school full-time with start time of 8.30a.m. and a finish time of 3p.m.
Miss Maddocks, Early Years Leader and Reception Class teacher will be contacting all parents via telephone during the day on Thursday 3rd and Friday 4th September to gather some further information about your child and just to chat to you about your child starting school. Obviously we would prefer to do this face to face but unfortunately we are unable to do this! Don’t worry if you miss your call, she will make sure that she catches you!
The following information is what we have sent to all parents and includes safety measures that we have to have in place to ensure we are following all government and Local Authority guidance.
Please don’t feel overwhelmed by it all: I am sure that once you have been to school for the transition days and see everything in practice, you will feel a lot more at ease!
Attendance
Attendance will be mandatory in September, as the government expects all pupils to attend school. The usual rules will apply, meaning we’ll be recording attendance and following up on any absences.
If your children have been staying at home due to the current shielding guidance, the government is due to pause this guidance on 1 August if there’s a continued decline in coronavirus transmission rates. That means they should be able to come back to school in September.
However, if you’ve received clinical or public health advice that your children should still remain at home, please let us know and continue to follow that guidance. We’ll be offering remote education to these pupils.
These are our preliminary arrangements; we may have to change these depending on further advice and guidance form the government.
Children will return to school in September and move up to their new year groups and their new class teachers. There will be a handover /transition from their previous teacher to ensure continuity.
Class organisation:
Year group | Class Teachers |
Reception | Miss Maddocks |
1 | Mr Cox |
2 | Miss Hope |
3 | Mrs Meadows/ Mrs Nixon |
4 | Miss Clifford |
5 | Mr Brentnall |
6 | Mrs Collings |
Dates when children will return to school:
Tuesday 1st September | School closed PD Day |
Wednesday 2nd September | School closed PD Day |
Thursday 3rd September | School open for children with surnames A-K |
Friday 4th September | School open for children with surnames L-Z |
From Monday 7th September | School open for ALL children in Year groups 1-6 |
Friday 11th September | Induction morning for new Reception intake. |
From Monday 14th September | New Reception class in school until 12.30p.m. |
From Monday 21st September | New Reception class in school full-time. |
On Thursday 3rd and Friday 4th September we have decided to have approximately half of each class in so that we can teach the children the new routines and systems in place in school to help keep everyone safe.
SAFETY MEASURES
When your children return to school, we will have the following protective measures in place:
Staggered start times and entrances to and exits from school
Year Group | Start time | Entry to school via | Finish Time | Exit from school via |
Reception | 8.30-8.40a.m. | Reception yard gate | 3-3.10p.m. | Reception yard gate |
Year 1 | 8.45 -8.55 a.m. | Reception yard gate | 3.15-3.25p.m. | Reception yard gate |
Year 2 | 8.45 -8.55 a.m. | Main gate (Quiet Yard) | 3.15-3.25p.m. | Main gate(Quiet Yard) |
Year 3 | 8.30-8.40a.m. | Main gate (Quiet Yard) | 3-3.10p.m. | Main gate(Quiet Yard) |
Year 4 | 8.45 -8.55 a.m. | Car park gate | 3.15-3.25p.m. | Car park gate |
Year 5 | 8.30-8.40a.m. | Car park gate | 3-3.10p.m. | Car park gate |
Year 6 | 9.00 – 9.10a.m. | Car park gate | 3.30-3.40p.m. | Car park gate |
Children in Reception , Year 1, 2 and 3
- Arrival times and collection times must be adhered to as we have different year groups of children arriving at staggered times to maintain social distancing.
- There must only be one adult accompanying the child.
Mornings:
- Please bring your child in through their designated gate and stand in the yard with your child.
- Parents must maintain social distancing at all times.
- Children should not be running about and playing. They need to stand with the adult that has brought them.
- As soon as the teacher comes, parents will leave the yard so that teachers can line the children up and bring them into school through their designated door/entrance to the building.
- If you have any messages that you need to pass to your child’s teacher, this needs to be done via a telephone call to school. This is to safeguard staff and also to allow us to get the children into school as quickly as possible.
- Please consider parents in next drop off/pick up slot and leave as soon as possible to enable others to park safely and reduce the risk of cross-over of class bubbles. .
- End of the school day: Please wait for your child in the designated yard. Please do not congregate at or outside the gates. Gates need to be kept clear for ingress and egress.
- We ask that parents stand socially distanced from each other when collecting your child. This will enable teachers to ‘spot’ you and send your child to you. We ask that you maintain social distancing when leaving with your child.
SIBLINGS
- Arrangements remain the same.
- Drop off all children with the earliest drop off time and pick up with the latest.
YEARS 4, 5 & 6
IMPORTANT CHANGES
- Arrival times and collection times must be adhered to as we have different year groups of children arriving at staggered times to maintain social distancing.
- There must only be one adult accompanying the child.
- Please continue to use the car park gate. We have cordoned off an area of the car park where you can come and wait with your child on a morning and where you can wait for pick up at the end of school.
- Mornings: If you prefer to, you can drop your child and let them come in through the car park gate on their own as long as a member of staff is there for your allocated time slot.
- If you do bring your child in through the gate, please stand with your child in the designated area in the car park.
- Parents must maintain social distancing at all times.
- Children should not be running about and playing. They need to stand with the adult that has brought them.
- As soon as the teacher comes, parents will leave the yard so that teachers can line the children up and bring them into school through their designated door/entrance to the building.
- If you have any messages that you need to pass to your child’s teacher, this needs to be done via a telephone call to school. This is to safeguard staff and also to allow us to get the children into school as quickly as possible.
- Please consider parents in next drop off/pick up slot and leave as soon as possible to enable others to park safely and reduce the risk of cross-over of class bubbles. .
- End of the school day: please wait for your child in the designated space. Please do not congregate at or outside the gates. Gates need to be kept clear for ingress and egress.
- We ask that parents stand socially distanced from each other when collecting your child. This will enable teachers to ‘spot’ you and send your child to you. We ask that you maintain social distancing when leaving with your child.
SIBLINGS
- Arrangements remain the same.
- Drop off all children with the earliest drop off time and pick up with the latest.
If you have more than one child in school:
- Please bring your children in with the child that has the earliest start time. Wait with your children in the designated yard for the child with the earliest start. A member of staff will take care of the children with the later start time.
- You can collect all of your children at the time allocated for the latest child from their designated pick up point.
- If your children have the same start times, then please drop your eldest child with the teacher and wait as above with your youngest child.
School Transport
- There is no longer a school bus in operation.
- All children must be brought to school by an adult and collected by an adult.
- We ask that parents park sensibly. Please do not park across the school car park as this will restrict access for those year groups entering school via that route.
Breakfast Club and After School Clubs
- We are currently unable to offer this provision due to staggered start and finish times and the need to ensure that class groups are kept separate at all times. We will review this over the coming months.
What children should wear to school
- Children will be expected to wear school uniform. It is also recommended that children wear a clean set of clothes daily to avoid contamination. It is also recommended that children change their clothes as soon as they get home too.
- If children wear sensible footwear i.e. trainers all the time then it means that we can do physical activities whenever possible.
- On the days when your child has PE. They will wear PE kit to come to school. It will be outdoor PE kit that they will need to wear. PE lessons will be delivered outdoors as much as possible. We will confirm the days for each class when we return in September.
- There will be no swimming lessons as far as we are aware at this point in time.
- We will not take part in any sporting festivals in the first half of the autumn term.
What children need to bring to school
We will be limiting what children bring into school and take home from school. This is because we have to wipe every item brought into school down with disinfectant and this is time consuming.
- Please bring a water bottle. This should be full. Children will be allowed to refill them during the day.
- Water bottles will be wiped down on arrival at school.
- Children should not bring a book bag to school.
- Children will no longer be allowed to bring mobile phones into school to leave in the office.
School Lunches and playtimes
- Playtimes and lunchtimes will be staggered. This is to ensure that we keep classes separate.
- There will be three sittings for lunch to accommodate all classes. Some classes will eat their lunches in their classroom. Half an hour will be designated to eating lunch followed by half an hour outdoor play.
- As a school we have decided that ALL children will have a school meal. This is to eliminate packed lunch boxes coming into school and maintain safety and hygiene. We are also trying our best to keep Taylor Shaw staff in work.
- Children will have a choice of 2 meals and will choose their meal the day before.
- Hot meals will be served to the table in ‘take away’ type cartons. This will limit unnecessary contact collecting food from the serving hatch in trays etc. It also means that all waste can be easily disposed of.
- Reception, Year 1 and Year 2 children will still receive their meals free as part of the government’s universal free school meal initiative.
- For those children who are entitled to Free School Meals by means testing then this will continue to be the case.
- We appreciate that some families may have been affected financially through COVID-19 impacting on your employment status; please contact school in September and we can see if you qualify for free school meals.
- For the rest of the children, the cost of a school meal is £2.10 per day. Please use ParentPay to pay for your child’s meals.
What will be happening in school:
- Children will be asked to wash their hands on arrival at school and this will be done at regular intervals throughout the day. Handwashing and toilet times will be supervised.
- Children will be in their class groups for all aspects of the school day and there will be no contact or socialisation with any other group. There will be no assemblies or collective gatherings for any activities.
- Although guidelines states that children can be safely together as a group of 30 in school, social distancing will be in place for all movement around the school site even during playtimes and lunchtimes. This is to avoid cross-contamination wherever possible.
- Classrooms are minimalistic but, luckily, we have been decorating so they look clean and fresh. There will be limited access to resources. All desks, seating, resources etc will be regularly wiped down and cleaned.
- We will be taking the children outside as much as we possibly can.
- Teachers continue to need to maintain social distancing which is unfortunately very different to the way we normally conduct teaching and learning in school.
- We will still be using our Traffic Lights Behaviour Policy but this will be done with a focus on maintaining safety during these unprecedented times. We will need to be extremely strict regarding this as we do not want to compromise the safety of any member of our school community.
Teaching and Learning – our ‘Escomb Offer’
Although there’ll need to be some changes to reflect the teaching time that was lost during the lockdown, we’ll still be doing our best to provide an ambitious, broad and balanced curriculum wherever possible.
Our intent and how we will implement this is to:
Re-engage – We know that children will need time to re-engage with school. They have not attended for a substantial period of time and will need support, guidance and time to get used to being with us again. Children will be in different classrooms with their new teachers. There will be a handover from the previous class teacher and we are trying where possible for teaching assistants to move up with the class for a period of time. Time will be needed to establish relationships, routines, structures and expectations; just as we would normally do at the beginning of an academic year. We intend to do this in a very pastoral way, utilising an increased number of Personal, Social, Health and Economic Education (PSHE) lessons to establish comfort, confidence and emotional well-being related to being back in school. We will communicate clearly and often with parents/carers during this phase to ensure you have a good understanding of how your child is settling in at school.
We are aware that lockdown has been a difficult time for many of us, including our children.
Please let us know if you think your children might need extra support when returning to school, such as if they feel anxious about coming back or they’re experiencing bereavement.
Review – Teachers will be reviewingwith children what has been provided for home learning and how much of this has been understood and retained. They will also review children’s knowledge of basic skills in reading, writing and use of number from the previous year group expectations and will use this as a starting point from which to move learning forward.
Recover – Teachers will plan for and deliver lessons that support children to recoverfrom the lost learning time. We intend to make this interactive and engaging to further enhance pupils learning and understanding, particularly in English and Maths. We will also use our Learning Challenge curriculum to develop and practise these basic skills in a cross-curricular way.
We have also thought of ways that we can deliver the curriculum remotely either due to local lockdowns or due to individuals or groups/classes of children needing to self-isolate. Fingers-crossed that we don’t have to go down this route!
Educational Visits: we will not be organising any visits for at least the first half of the autumn term
First Aid / Illness
The government guidelines do not require school staff to wear PPE as a matter of course, however staff have been given the choice to wear whatever level of PPE they are comfortable with for them to successfully carry out their duties in school. In circumstances where a child requires First Aid, is unwell or appears to be displaying symptoms of COVID-19, staff will wear gloves, aprons, face masks and visors as appropriate to protect themselves and your child when social distancing is not an option. If your child has an accident, becomes ill or requires First Aid you may be called to take your child home.
We ask that your child does not come to school if they are ill or if they or anyone in your house is displaying symptoms of COVID 19. The symptoms of COVID 19 are:
- a high temperature – this means you feel hot to touch on your chest or back;
- a new, continuous cough – this means coughing a lot for more than an hour, or 3 or more coughing episodes in 24 hours;
- 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.
If your child becomes unwell at school, with suspected COVID symptoms your child will be isolated in and you will be asked to take them home, adhere to government self-solation guidance and seek a test to ascertain a diagnosis.
If we receive notice of a confirmed case of COVID 19 the school may need to close at short notice for deep cleaning and staff and families may be asked to follow government guidance regarding self-isolation.
The message from the government to reduce the risk of COVID-19 remains the same. It is really important that at home you continue to take proactive measures including hand washing with soap and hot water for a minimum of 20 seconds, use ‘catch it, bin it, kill it’ when sneezing and coughing and maintaining social distancing whenever possible.
You can view our Risk Assessment here. (updated September 2020)
Obviously there may be need to ‘tweak’ some of our plans once we see them in practice but we will let you know if there are any changes.
We will never be able to guarantee that there is no risk, but by working constructively together we can return to school as safely as possible to minimise the risk whilst ensuring that children begin to benefit once more from education and learning.
You all know how we work at Escomb Primary School and how we take great pride in our family ethos, I can assure you that however stark the messages and practices we need to put in place, staff will do it in a kind and caring manner with the children’s best interests and safety at the heart of it all – and with a big smile! We want our little people to feel comfortable and enjoy their return to school.
Thank you once again for your continued support and I know that you will do your very best to help us make this work for our children.
Wendy Gill
Headteacher