St George And St Teresa Catholic Primary School

Dear Parents and Carers,

Firstly, I want to say a huge thank you to all of you for your support, kind words and messages of thanks over the last couple of weeks - it really means the world to us.  Also, a big thank you for all of you who are heeding government advice and keeping your children at home.  We are currently open for those of you who need us and staff are proud to support you and to play their part.

As time moves on, I am hoping to keep school open for as long as possible but I may need to change the times that we are open from.  Going forward, we are trying to limit the amount of time any of us are together, and if the demand for late opening is not there, then I may change the closing time to 4:00pm.  I will let you know when I do this. 

I hope to keep you updated regularly with any updates.  For now, there are many things that I just do not have answers for, such as:

• Trips – will they be rescheduled?  Refunds?  We will need to liaise with the venues and also our insurers if needed.  This may take time – please bear with us.  We do not want the children to miss out and we will do our best to reschedule wherever possible.
• First Reconciliation and First Holy Communion.  These will have to be rescheduled – I will let you know as soon as I can.
• Dragons fees – Governors will need to consider and decide how we manage this.  Obviously, we are still paying for all of our overheads, staff and costs, but how we will continue to do this during a prolonged shutdown is uncertain at the moment.  The school and Governors will work to ensure the Dragon service is available as soon as school restarts.  It may be we ask to you to help us by contributing what you can – but again, this has to be decided.  If at all possible, if you could honour your bill for the rest of this term – it would be really appreciated.  As soon as any more decisions are made I will communicate with you.
• Dinner money – refunds etc.  We haven’t had any information regarding this at the moment.
• Year 6 – What a way to end this year!  When I can, I will write to you all.  But for now, be reassured that we will have you all back in school at some point to have a special Mass and celebration and to say thank you and goodbye properly.

Safeguarding:

Please be assured that we are here for all of our children and families.  If you have any safeguarding concerns at all – please email the office.  Either myself, or a member of the admin staff will be picking these up daily.  We have systems in place where the designated safeguarding leads can be contacted at all times.

However, if you are worried about any safeguarding, then call Solihull MASH team (Multi Agency Safeguarding Hub) 0121 788 4333

Out of hours 0121 605 6060

If you are worried that a child is in immediate danger call the police.

As you can imagine, the office is a little inundated with emails at the moment.  If I can ask you to only send us urgent emails for now – we would really appreciate it.  I know that in the future, this may be our only way of communicating. Hopefully, normal business will be resumed soon.

School is so quiet today – I have had to put the radio on in my office!  I miss hearing everyone playing outside.  Enjoy the sunshine and try to make this special time with your family. 

God bless,

Nicola Wright