St George And St Teresa Catholic Primary School

16^th March 2020

Dear Parents and Carers,

CORONAVIRUS UPDATE

We are living in worrying times and the Prime Minister’s statement last week (12th March 2020) suggests that the situation is likely to deteriorate before it begins to improve. On Friday the Government updated their health guidance. If your child has any of the symptoms listed below they must not attend school for 7 days and must isolate. If you face this situation please contact the school office, we are keeping detailed records of all pupil absence. When contacting school please inform us of their symptoms if they are absent due to illness.

Government updated advice – 12th March 2020

Stay at home and isolate for 7 days if you have either:

-a high temperature

-a new continuous cough

This will help to protect others in your community while you are infectious. Do not go to a GP surgery, pharmacy or hospital.

You do not need to contact NHS 111 to tell them you’re staying at home.

We will not be testing people who are self-isolating with mild symptoms.

Further advice can be found at: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/covid-19-stay-at-home-guidance/stay-at-home-guidancefor-people-with-confirmed-or-possible-coronavirus-covid-19-infection

The Department for Education coronavirus helpline is also available to answer questions about COVID-19 relating to education and children’s social care. Staff, parents and young people can contact this helpline as follows. 0800 046 8687 Opening hours: 8am to 6pm Monday to Friday and 10am to 4pm Saturday and Sunday.

If this advice changes and I will inform you with any updates immediately.

Partial Lockdown

As a precaution, the governors and I have decided to do the following:

• All sporting activities / fixtures etc. are postponed until further notice
• All swimming is postponed for the rest of this term – I will let you know of any reimbursements / rescheduling as soon as I have any information
• Any external visitors / trips have been cancelled / postponed up until Easter – any trips scheduled for after Easter will be reviewed over the next few weeks
• All after school clubs have been cancelled until after Easter– this includes: Football, Cricket, Martial Arts, Year 3 cookery club, Premier Active, Stardust and Star Struck – If this causes you any issues with child care this week, then please let the office know ASAP
• Year 3 Reconciliation meeting for Tuesday 17^th March – postponed until further notice
• The Sacrament of Reconciliation for the 24^th March – postponed until further notice
• The Easter Play – postponed until further notice
• All governors’ meetings - postponed until further notice
• PTA Onesie Night - scheduled for this Friday 20^th March - is postponed
• PTA May ball is still scheduled but this is also being reviewed

• SEND meetings for Thursday and Friday will still go ahead at this stage – but this will be reviewed later in the week

School Closure

While the Government is not currently planning to close schools, school closure has not been ruled out and is a measure they are keeping under daily review. St George and St Teresa School is now preparing for the real possibility of a prolonged period of school closure. We are preparing school closure homework packs, these will look different in each year group but they will include items such as spellings, additional reading books, Maths work, research study etc. We are also working behind the scenes with our website support, to hopefully set up for each class to have access to work via our website. As soon as we can, we will let you know how this will work.

As you will appreciate this is a rapidly changing situation. Whilst I understand that there will be a wide range of different views about how we should be responding and what action should be taken, I hope you will appreciate that I am duty bound to follow the official advice from Government. We will of course keep you updated if and when advice changes.

Finally, please do spare a thought for our elderly neighbours who will be particularly anxious. Please try to do whatever you can to support and comfort them.

Thank you for your continued support.

Best wishes,

Nicola Wright

Headteacher