Dear Parents,

It was lovely to welcome all your children back to the setting yesterday, but even better was seeing them playing on the playground in mixed age groups. Today we have had our first ‘Family at School’ session together for almost two years. It was great to see the Y6 children stepping up to leadership.

In school, children are managing the new arrangements and maintaining the increased handwashing and respiratory hygiene very well. However, both getting into school and leaving school is still not fully resolved: it is always going to be busy with over 200 children entering and leaving in 15 minutes. Of course, it isn’t helped by one of our gates being ‘out-of-use’, but the HBC contractor has promised to repair this soon.

In the morning, with children leaving parents at the gate, coming straight onto the playground between 8.45 and 9.00 am it seems to work, but it does mean that parents need to move away from the gate straight after saying good-bye, to allow the next children to come through. If you are staying for a chat please move away from the area directly in front of the gates.

Leaving school, it is more difficult but, we are trying a new arrangement from today.

  • Y5 & 6 will leave via the main entrance and pedestrian gate through the car park, which is closed anyway at this time.
  • Y2, Y3 & Y4 will leave via the upper door and pedestrian gate, nearest the car-park, from the playground.
  • Reception & Y1 will leave via the lower door and central (double gates) from the playground.
  • Y5 & Y6 children with siblings have chosen either to link up with siblings in school and will come out from their respective gates or to meet up with parents finding them outside.

If you are wondering why we are not having parents back in the playground yet, it is because the children take up more space in the way we are asking them to stand at the moment and I don’t want to double the numbers of people trying to get through the gates in two directions as that is the pinch point for infection transmission at the moment, and levels of infection in the community are going up once again.

We will keep adjusting as we come up with other ideas, and more importantly we hope that we can relax further when infections begin to disappear. Thank you all for your support and help during these difficulties.

Your sincerely,
John Hardy (Head Teacher)