Following the announcement made by the Prime Minister at 8pm tonight that all schools must use remote learning only we are devastated that we cannot open to pupils tomorrow as planned. Every member of our staff was dedicated to welcoming all the pupils back tomorrow and had lots of things planned which unfortunately now cannot happen. 

Following discussions with Governors we now have permission for emergency school closure for tomorrow so that all the necessary arrangements can be made. This means that no pupils will be able to be in school tomorrow (Tuesday), because the late notice of the PM's announcement has left us with very little time to coordinate everything that needs to be done. We will update you all during tomorrow morning via messages and on this page on the website with our plans for the next few weeks.

I am very glad that we took the bold step and bought Chromebooks for all pupils in KS2 and took some time before Christmas to teach pupils how to use them. Information will come tomorrow on how you can collect these from school so that your child can use them at home for the learning that our staff will update daily. There will be a loan agreement that must be read and signed before you take the Chromebooks home so please ensure that a parent/carer accompanies whoever collects the Chromebook. Timings for this will be sent to you tomorrow.

Pupils in Early Years will have some work sent via Tapestry and all year groups, including KS1 can access work from the class pages on our website. We will be in touch tomorrow to find out who does not have access to the internet at home so that paper copies can be sent out instead. Many of our pupils will be able to access their learning through Google Classroom and we will have information to send home about this.

We will also be in touch tomorrow to establish who has key worker status and therefore which children can come into school. You will need to provide us with proof from your employer of your key worker status and the information will be sent to you tomorrow about this. All vulnerable children will receive a telephone call over the day tomorrow and will be offered a place in school if they wish to take it. We will let you know by 3pm tomorrow if we can definitely have these pupils in school from Wednesday, which is our goal.

I will be in touch with Catering Services tomorrow to find out how Free School Meals will be distributed from Wednesday too. This will also come out as a message during the day once I receive the answer.

We totally understand that this lockdown has been made to keep everyone as safe as possible and that we need to reduce the number of people mixing. We will be keeping updated with all guidance as it comes from the Department for Education and will share any information with you if things change. I only wish that we had been given more notice so that we could have supported you more in preparing for this but we will continue to provide everything that we can.

Staff will be in school every day so feel free to get in touch via telephone if you have any queries. I hope that our whole school community stays safe during this awful time and we're here to help in any way we can.

Take care and stay safe

Miss Bilton