Happy new year to you all! I hope that you all enjoyed a good Christmas and that everyone is safe.

As I write this there are still constant changes being made due to speculation in the media about primary pupils returning to school. Our intention remains the same in that we aim to provide a safe environment for our whole school community and we are working hard to ensure that we can mitigate as many risks as possible. Some teaching unions have advised their members that there has not been enough scientific evidence around the new strain of the Coronavirus and therefore, they do not think that it is safe for school staff to return. This is due to our region being in Tier 4 which is the same as London and the guidance has not been consistent across regions.

All unions are working with the Government around Health and Safety legislation and this is still ongoing, so it is difficult for me to pre-empt what will happen next. However, our aim is to open to all pupils from Tuesday 5th January because we all know how important it is for pupils to be in school. If for any reason school cannot be open, then remote learning will be provided for those pupils instead.

Please be aware that the current situation is not the fault of our school or our staff team, who have all spent time during the Christmas break planning for learning this term. Thank you for your patience as we wait for further guidance from the Government.

Welcoming our pupils back to school on Tuesday 5th will be dependent on further government guidance or restrictions. In the meantime we are updating our risk assessment to make any necessary changes to protect all children and school staff following new guidance. All children are expected to attend school unless advised not to attend by their GP or school. If your doctor advises against your child attending school please provide us with a copy of this for our records.

Please continue to follow our rule of only one adult per household dropping off and collecting children from our school site and can we request you not bring a dog. Please also strictly maintain the 2m social distancing rule when on our premises and do not congregate outside of our school gates so that we can keep everyone as safe as possible. If you are able to wear a mask we ask that you do so on our school premises so we can follow the Space, Face, Hands guidance. Our staggered start and finish times will help to keep numbers on our school paths to a minimum at any one time, and these have not changed from last term. School will be open from 8:45am onwards only for those pupils whose parents are key workers and need to get to work.

As always, I will keep you informed if anything changes, otherwise we are still planning our exciting learning for the term ahead. Thank you for your continuing support during these difficult and confusing times.