Dear Parents,
I am emailing this morning in response to the government announcement yesterday afternoon about the next level of actions that we all need to take. Government advice is:
Stay at home if you have coronavirus symptoms
Stay at home if you have either:
a high temperature – you feel hot to touch on your chest or back (37.8 degrees or more)
a new, continuous cough – this means you’ve started coughing repeatedly
Do not go to a GP surgery, pharmacy or hospital.
You do not need to contact 111 to tell them you’re staying at home.
Testing for coronavirus is not needed if you’re staying at home.
How long to stay at home
if you have symptoms, stay at home for 7 days
if you live with other people, they should stay at home for 14 days from the day the first person got symptoms
If you live with someone who is 70 or over, has a long-term condition, is pregnant or has a weakened immune system, try to find somewhere else for them to stay for 14 days.
If you have to stay at home together, try to keep away from each other as much as possible.
This advice is also relevant for children attending school. If your child is showing symptoms please follow the advice above and self-isolate the family for 14 days.
There are a number of schools, including this one, who have staff members or pupils self-isolating further to government advice. There are no confirmed cases of Covid-19 and this course of action has been taken in conjunction with national guidance and as a matter of caution. I have been reassured by our local public health team that the risk to children in our school remains low at this point.
We will continue to monitor the wider situation carefully but for now we believe that keeping our children’s lives and education as normal as possible is very important.
At the moment, the advice remains that the best method of protection is good hand and respiratory hygiene, and we are reinforcing these messages at school.
I am meeting with the governing body tonight to discuss all eventualities of this situation. I will write to you all tomorrow with further information – it will most likely be a long read! I have had lots of emails thanking me for schools considered response and honesty so far, so I am going to be honest with you now – with this new advice, we now have several members of staff either self-isolating because of other family members showing slight symptoms or they are self-isolating/distancing because of their vulnerable health issues.
Because of these staffing issues, I am battling to keep school open. I will continue to battle for as long as we can and try to keep school open but we are at a point where if we have a few more staff self-isolating, we could be at a tipping point. I don’t want to be alarmist – I just want to forewarn you. And, to be frank, I’ve no idea what other measures are going to come from the government!
As per my previous messages, I want to try and carry on with normal school life as much as possible. At the moment the school disco is still on but this could change. The Year 5 trip on Thursday is now cancelled due to the advice of social distancing and not going to theatres.
As always, I will keep you updated on any developments. Thank you for your support and understanding in this ever changing time.
