Welcome to Parc Eglos School

Parc Eglos School is closed until further notice.
We are providing key worker provision. Please contact secretary@parc-eglos.cornwall.sch.uk if you need a place, book a place or we will be closed so that staff can work from home in line with government advice.

Do NOT send your child in if they have any of the Covid -19 symptoms: a persistent cough or high temperature.
Help us to keep everyone safe.

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EL Letter to parents Next Steps Post June 1st Planning_final version.pdf

Dear Parent or Carer,

We would like to start this letter by saying a massive thank you for all of the support that you have shown during this time of National crisis. Your kind words, supportive emails and commitment to using our home learning resources has been incredible. This letter will provide you with detailed information as we prepare to implement the government’s plan for schools to begin a phased wider opening. It is important to note that our plans are dynamic and will depend upon the most recent government decisions, and our staff availability. As you will be aware, these changes are being planned to be implemented from 1st June at the earliest. At the time of this letter, no date for the wider opening schools has been confirmed. Schools are awaiting this information from the Government who will make the decision (28th May) on when to move into Step 2 of coming out of lockdown.

Prioritising Year groups

Following government guidance, our first task was to prioritise the key worker and the vulnerable children for school places. After this we were required to prioritise which year group of YR, Y1 and Y6. Following your feedback, we have decided to invite Y6 parents to bring their children to school as of Monday 8^th June. We will review the situation, with a view to inviting Y1 children the following week, Monday 15^th June and if we have space still, we will look to invite Reception children on Monday 22^nd June. Unfortunately, due to staff availability, we are unable to offer nursery places other than those available to Key Workers and Vulnerable Children. However, we are looking to review this regularly and will look to extend the Nursery provision as soon as we can. We decided that a phased return of year groups would be the most appropriate way to widen our school provision. This will allow for the children and staff to embed new routines and procedures, ensuring that necessary refinements can be made before introducing the next year group.

Yes, it is a cautious approach, but the right one under these extreme circumstances. As the children will be in groups of no more than ten, this means that we could need up to 6 classroom areas for the Y6 children and similar numbers for the other year groups. We will therefore be admitting just Y6 children initially and be looking to build from that once we have established how many children will actually be joining us.

Until further notice ALL other year groups - apart from Y6, Key worker and Vulnerable children - will have to continue to stay at home and we will continue to provide home learning activities and regular contact. Please do bear in mind that many teachers will be teaching in school as, wherever possible, we are trying to put a teacher with every group. Therefore, different staff will be looking after Google Classrooms. We know you are doing such a fabulous job with this at home and we will look to adapt this in order to make the weeks clearer for you. We will be meeting as a staff on Monday 1^st June (at a distance of course!) and will be discussing how we can develop this and ensure consistency throughout the age groups. Please do bear in mind that next week is half term and the children like our teachers deserve a rest.

Many people are unsure on whether a return to school is a good thing. We will continue to support all children and families whether you continue to keep your child at home or send them into school. Below, we are sharing our plans so that you can make an informed decision. Whilst we will put into place specific control measures and follow the latest government advice, we cannot guarantee anyone’s safety from coming into contact with COVID-19 whilst attending school. We suggest that families continue to monitor the daily reports and government briefings, so that you feel informed enough to make a decision on whether returning to school is right for your child and family’s individual circumstances. In relation to attendance you will have my full support on any decision that you make. The government has made it clear that there will be no implications or fines for families that choose not to send their children to school. Individual families are in the best place to decide what to do. Factors that you must consider include: underlying health issues of your child and family members; whether the structure of the school day will meet your expectations for what is beneficial to your child and your own interpretation of the current risk to your child/family of being in contact with COVID19 whilst attending school.

We are following government advice to keep our children and staff safe and whilst the guidance recognises that it is difficult to have young children social distance we will do the following:

Children will be split into groups (bubbles) of no more than 10
Individual groups will not mix
Each group will be allocated with at least one adult and no adult can work with more than one group apart from outdoor supervisors who will remain at a distance and will wear PPE
Tables and carpet spaces will be spaced at 2 metres apart.
Soft furnishing/resources that cannot be cleaned daily will be removed

We will attempt to maintain social distancing rules and will teach the importance of good hygiene and personal space but you will understand that we cannot guarantee that children will follow these requests at all times. Please consider this when deciding on whether to send your child to school.

Returning Y6 Children

As it currently stands, we are looking to staff each group with an adult who will remain the same throughout the week. Not all children will be taught by a teacher, but wherever possible we will ensure that there is a familiar adult in every group as we understand the importance of this. We plan to use our best endeavours to teach an adapted summer term curriculum and look to match the home learning activities. To support in reducing any size of gathering on site, each group will have a specified drop off and pick up time, and we will collect the children from the bottom school gate. It will be vital that you stick to these timings and locations, and do not arrive early or late. There will be markings on the outside pavements to help all adhere to the 2-metre social distancing guidance. In addition to this, we request that only one parent/carer accompany their child to the site and, again, we politely ask that any toddlers or younger children accompanying parents are either in buggies or kept closely by their parent. A swift departure will be required to enable the next group to more safely arrive. To enable the teachers to have their Preperation and Planning Time and to allow for a deep clean, we are finishing at 1.15pm on a Friday with specified collection times starting at 12.30pm. The specified times will be 8.30-9.30am and 2.30-3.30pm (Mon-Thurs). We will let you know which times we have allocated to you and your children’s bubble groups by Tuesday 2^nd June. If your child is in Y6 and already attending school, you will need to decide which group for your child to join, as he or she will not be able to move from the Y6 Bubble Group to the Key Worker and Vulnerable Bubble Group when school finishes. There are no extended school activities for Y6 children as that would break all the COVID 19 rules.

Cleaning of key areas

Additional hours for cleaning have been put into place, and the school will be cleaned early in the morning before children arrive, the ‘heavier-use’ areas cleaned again at lunchtimes – toilets, door handles, etc. to ensure a full deep clean of the site each week as well as an intensive clean every evening.

We know that you understand the reasons these are in place, and will support us in implementing these stringent measures to keep us all as safe as we can be. We ask that no parent accesses the school grounds, but instead communicates with us via email secretary@parc-eglos.cornwall.sch.uk. We will monitor emails during the holiday period and deal with any urgent enquiries. The school telephone 01326 572998 will be staffed from 1st June.

School Meals

Y6 children will be need to bring in their own packed lunch to school. Lunches will be eaten either at their space in the classroom or in their designated outside space if the weather is fine.

Uniform

We will be very flexible regarding the wearing of school uniform as the government guidelines ask you to put their clothes straight into the washing machine and to shower or bath them immediately on arriving home. They can wear uniform or other appropriate clothing as long as it is clean every day as it would be very difficult to wash and dry uniform every single evening.

Preparation, Planning and Closure

Our school will be closed completely on Monday 1st and Tuesday 2nd June and throughout the week, for staff training and the rearrangement of the physical spaces ready to accommodate the new groupings of children. Key worker and vulnerable children will be accommodated, in the same way as over half term, at Helston Community College where they will be need to bring a packed lunch. We will then be accommodating Key worker and vulnerable children back at Parc Eglos on Wednesday 3^rd June. As from Monday 8^th June, we are asking for these children to be brought to the top gate at a specified time slot and they will be collected by a Teacher or Teaching Assistant who will escort them to their allocated area.

In the event of a child/adult showing symptoms of COVID-19

As part of our Risk Assessment, if a child/member of staff is suspected of having COVID-19, ALL families within the affected bubble will be informed that day so that families can decide if they wish to take precautionary measures themselves. If a child/adult tests positive for the virus, families will be notified, all members of the bubble will have to self-isolate as per government advice.

In Conclusion

If your child is in Y6 and you choose to return them to school, we will do all we can to welcome your children back into a warm environment. We have put a whole pastoral and well-being plan into place to help children transition back into a school environment which we know will look and be very different to the one they left. Making your children feel happy and safe in school is our utmost priority. It would help if you could talk these measures through with your child prior to his or her return so they know what to expect. I want to reassure you that we are looking forward to being able to open to our Y6 pupils from 8th June 2020, if we are given the go ahead to do so. We will, as always, communicate with you fully, openly and promptly as plans evolve and change as more information from the government becomes available. We will keep parents of any returning year groups fully informed as things evolve.

Main points in this letter

1. We will not know until the 28th May 2020 whether the government will ask us to go ahead with this plan.

2. Only children of Key Workers and vulnerable children will be in school on Wednesday 3^rd to Friday 5^th June.

3. If the decision on the 28th May 2020 is to start our phased wider opening, we will communicate with Y6 parents by Tuesday 2^nd June 2020 about specified start times on Monday 8th June including further details on our safety measures

4. ALL other year groups, apart from Key worker and vulnerable children will remain at home. Further updates re EYFS and Y1 children will be communicated after each weekly review.

5. Home learning will continue to be provided for all pupils. We will look to support pupils who are doing home learning through Google Classrooms and a wealth of other resources.

‘What do I need to do next?’

You do not need to do anything until after Thursday 28th May when further information from the Government. If you have not already confirmed whether your child will require a place, please contact us before by 28^th May otherwise your child may be delayed in starting. Please note that this is for full time schooling and cannot be for drop in and drop out sessions. We know you will have many more questions about our potential reopening for your child. We will attempt to answer these in our next communication with you on 1st June when we will have more information to work from.

We know this seems like a military operation but we are sure you can understand why. We will keep listening and responding to needs as we endeavour to keep supporting all children remotely or in school. Thank you so much for your patience and understanding. We all cannot wait for the day when we welcome all our children again. This period has been challenging for us all and we couldn’t have got through without each other.

Kind regards

Brett Dye

Headteacher

Year 6 Parents

Link to Helston School Transition

https://www.helston.cornwall.sch.uk/web/year_6_into_year_7_letter_to_parents/481213