7^th September 2020

Welcome back to a new school year 2020/2021

Dear Parents and Carers,

Firstly, we are delighted to have the children back in school. They settled very quickly and everything (apart from keeping to bubbles) feels almost back to pre-lockdown. We most sincerely hope that we will be able to continue like this, having the children back in full time education whilst getting to know each of them again and putting recovery in place for their emotional and learning needs.

Thank you for the many messages of understanding in supporting the staff across the federation, it certainly has been a very different period of time. The holidays have been busy as usual with maintenance work completed and extra safety measures put in place.

We have tried to keep everyone informed by using email, Google and adding to the school website. However, having more to communicate has been a challenge. It is difficult to maintain this, as new class groups only get updated on school systems as children start their attendance at the start of a new school year. This same system also updates the Google site so we hope you have retrieved class welcomes from your previous class and these will be updated over the coming week. We have had a few little hitches with our computer system as everyone wants to get access at the same time after a quiet period, thank you for being patient during this time.

Thank you to those families who have responded positively to the requests shared in previous letters about coming onto the school grounds.  Please would you share this with all adults who drop and collect children for their convenience.

Important measures and risk assessments have been carefully thought out to ensure maximum protection for our children, staff, pupils who attend St Philomena’s and our wider family groups. Sadly, some of these requests have been overlooked and we really want to ensure we can minimise infection in school in order to keep the school open thus allowing parents to be able to be free for their own work commitments too.

It is really Important that we respect all who share the school sites.

To repeat the polite requests:

• Only one adult is allowed on site with their child
• Arrival should be on the entry and dismissal times and not before which will minimise numbers within restricted areas to allow for parents to circulate safely, allowing an easier flow of traffic with consideration also for the students of St Philomena’s to enter their school also without being in larger crowds (government guidance emphasises this)
• No adults are allowed to wait on any playground as this needs to be free for the purpose of those passing through
• Adults should obey signage as to where to wait
• All adults need to be wearing a face covering
• No cycling or scooting is allowed on school grounds
• No children or adults are allowed on the area of the Water Tower (situated in front of the junior school – this is not school property and has a preservation order, which we all need to respect)

Please let us continue to work together to make this work for all involved and please be the one who sets the best examples especially to our children.

School milk

This will be operating as normal.

Fresh Fruit

The government initiative for supplying fresh fruit daily for children in the infant school will resume.

Drop off times

As we have amended the session times to ensure maximum curriculum learning time takes place- the window for drop off is at the given time e.g. 8.30 am. not as previous when a 10-minute window was allocated. Children arriving late will need to be signed in at the office, resulting with an indication of this on the child’s attendance record. This is particularly important for those families at the infant school, for the safety of all – the request is to stay away from school until your entry time to alleviate the public space around the school site. - thank you for your cooperation in this. However, we are currently looking at improving the efficiency of entry at the infant school.

We would also ask that you consider your child walking in from the entrance to school grounds (as appropriate for age, independently), unless there is a specific need. Pupils in years 5 and 6 could be doing this and for other year groups in the junior school - take the opportunity to remind them of road safety. This measure would also reduce the number of adults on site considerably.

On this second day in school, we thank and congratulate all of you for being here together and to the good Lord for enabling this too. May we all stay safe whilst working side by side in St Mary’s community.

Have a wonderful first whole week.

With kind regards

Mrs Hulme MA, NPQH

Executive Headteacher