Dear Parents/Carers,

I am writing this somewhat teary eyed after wishing our Year 6s farewell. They are a fantastic group of children who have made me so proud. I am going to miss them enormously and wish them the very best for the future.

Now that term has ended, I wanted to let you know about our plans for September. We have followed the guidelines set out by the Department for Education and used this to inform our risk assessment, which was approved by governors yesterday evening.

We must be mindful that the government’s directive may change over the summer if the infection rate of Covid goes up, and I will write to you with any changes, but for now I wanted to share the main points of the plan with you.

Bubbles:

The children will be in Year group bubbles. Being in a year group bubble will still enable them to have the group work and staffing that they need, but also ensure that we keep to suggested guidelines. EYFS will be one bubble and the cirb another bubble.

Each year group bubble will have staggered breaks and lunches and only mix with one other year groups if they go to breakfast or after school club. We will follow the usual system for children who want a school dinner – detail to follow towards the end of the summer holidays.

Equipment:

We ask children to bring in only a named water bottle and their lunch if they are having a packed lunch from home. They can also bring their book bag and KS1 children will be able to bring in a special pencil case on the first day that they will keep in school for the whole term. KS2 children will have a pencil case provided. They will only use their own writing equipment that the school will provide. Play equipment will be shared with their bubble only and sanitized regularly.

Uniform and PE kit:

Children will need to wear their usual school uniform. On PE days they will need to come to school in their PE kit and wear it all day. They can bring in a pair of running shoes/trainers for the daily mile and outdoor PE and only these will be kept in school.

Start and end times:

The Department for Education have recommended that we have staggered starts and ends to the day. This makes sense as we need to ease congestion and maintain social distancing as much as possible at the school gates, but of course we don’t want to make life complicated for parents, especially for those with children in more than one year group. To that end, our timetable has 5 minute staggers using both our entrances. Please see the attachment for times and which entrance each year group will use. Following guidelines, we still cannot allow parents on site to minimize risk. However, please be assured that myself and Mrs. Dorling will be outside the gates to support the children and class teachers will come and meet and greet their class.  We will need your help with this though, especially in the first few days as we iron out any issues:

• Please do not arrive or send your older children to school before their appointed time. Once one child has gone through the gate, please step back with other children until it is their appointed time. Once all children have been dropped off, please move away from the school gates.
• We respectfully ask that you do all you can to keep to social distancing as you approach the school and are outside the school gates.
• Please avoid driving but, if you do have to drive, please do not drive up to the school entrance.
• In the first instance, please avoid using bikes and scooters if you live close by

You will see from the attachment that some year groups have a slightly later start time than 8:45 or earlier finish than 3:15. We have taken 15 minutes from lunch time to ensure that your children get their full statutory learning time in school. The slightly shorter lunch will also support the staggered breaks and lunches that we have planned, again following guidelines form the Department for Education.

Breakfast and After School Clubs:

Thank you to all who completed the survey monkey about this.

Our plan is to start breakfast and after school clubs from Monday 7^th. I will write to you with more details towards the end of the summer holidays but for now I can tell you that After School Club will be split into four groups: EYFS/KS1/Years 3 and 4/Years 5 and 6. They will need separate staffing so for the first term we won’t be able to offer any other clubs as we need to concentrate all our staffing into the running of these smaller After School Clubs. We will offer two times that children can be picked up from After School Club, at 5:00 pm and 5:30 pm, and children will then be brought to the main gate to meet you. We do hope to reintroduce other clubs in term 2.

Breakfast club will have one drop off time of 8:00 am with children met by staff at the main gate.

You will receive sign up information about both breakfast and After School Club via parent mail later today. You must fill in this booking form on line if you would like your child to attend, regardless of whether you have already signed up.

I will write to you towards the end of the summer with finer details but I hope this gives you a flavour so that you can plan ahead. We are planning to go ahead with coffee mornings, and many of our events such as International evening, but in a different virtual format.

It is the hardest thing to say we cannot let parents into the school. We hope that this will change in the future. For now, the priority is to get all children back into school full time with their teachers. We do have a contingency plan should there be a future lockdown and are working hard at our interim curriculum and the changes that need to be made to support our children on their return.

I am in school tomorrow and Thursday should you have any urgent enquiries but then am going to down tools for two weeks from this Friday 24^th to recharge my batteries, but will be back on line and in school from 10^th August to answer any questions you may have and to send you a copy of the risk assessment and any updates. As we go through the term, there will be a platform where we can answer any questions you may have. I will tell you more about this in September.

In the meantime, for urgent safeguarding concerns only, please contact:

• Sarah Dorling, our deputy head, at sarah.dorling@stnicholasprimaryschool.org.uk from the 25^th July to 31^st July.
• Danielle Ford, our senco and base leader, at danielle.ford@stnicholasprimaryschool.org.uk from  the 1^st August to 9^th August.

You can also contact the Multi-Agency Safeguarding Hub on: 0345 050 7666

From 10^th August, please do not hesitate to contact me with any questions you may have.

I am really looking forward to seeing you all in September.

Thank you for all your patience, kindness and understanding as we have faced the challenges of the last few months. It has been really appreciated.

Have a wonderful summer.

Best wishes