Dear parents/carers
I hope you have had a safe, relaxing and peaceful break over the Christmas and new year holiday.
I am contacting you to confirm that school will be open as planned from Monday the 4th of January. Breakfast club will open at 8:00am for eligible pupils, with classes opening at the times they opened in the autumn term. Pick up and drop off times have not changed, with pupils being collected from the same playgrounds or classroom areas.
Within school we are hoping to see more and more things slowly getting back to normal over the spring term. The positive news about the vaccine is something to be welcomed, as is the plan for secondary schools to carry our regular testing of pupils. These steps will allow us at New Marske Primary school to have more vulnerable people in our community vaccinated and more chance of asymptomatic pupils not being in school.
Even though these steps are positive, we do have some time to go before we can put behind us the changes we have had to make due to coronavirus. The concerns about increasing infection rates within communities, the new strain of coronavirus and our area moving into Tier 4 restrictions clearly indicate that the risk of coronavirus affecting us and our families is still the same, if not worse that before Christmas. With this in mind, I would like to remind you about the important steps we will continue to take to get past this next phase of the pandemic.
- If a child, or member of the household, presents with any of the 3 symptoms of coronavirus:
- A new a continuous cough
- A temperature above 37.8°
- Issues to do with taste and smell
- The affected person must go for a coronavirus test and the whole household must isolate until the results come back. If the results come back negative, the household can get back to normal activities. If a pupil was ill with symptoms and they had the test and it was negative, he/she can come back to school when they are feeling better.
- If the member of the household or pupil tests positive, that person must isolate for 10 days, as must the rest of the household.
- In addition to this we would again say that if a child is unwell and does not have any of the 3 symptoms, keep them off school until they are better.
- When on the school grounds, we ask that all adults wear a face mask and maintain social distancing. When we return on Monday, pupils and parents will be keen to see people they have not seen for a while. We ask them to do this while maintaining an appropriate social distancing and not to mix household or class bubbles.
- We also ask that pupils do not play in the playground prior to entry or exit time and that parents aim to get to school as near to school entry time as possible. This will reduce the potential of any household mixing in the playground.
Within school, the steps that were successfully implemented over the autumn term will continue this term. This means that staggered playtime and lunch time will take place, as well as limited interaction between class bubbles. Hand washing and respiratory hygiene will take priority within classes as will close monitoring of pupil illness.
We recognise that the best place for pupils, even at this crucial time in our fight against the virus, is school. Over the autumn term it was wonderful to see the number of enjoyable activities our pupils took part in, and how all of our staff, parents and pupils overcame any hardships along the way.
By further ensuring that we continue to stick to the simple steps above, we will hope to see that the virus will have less of an impact on our school than it did last term.
Yours faithfully
Mr Dooris