Welcome Back to School September 2020

Dear Parents & Carers,

I hope you have all had a fabulous summer and that all of your loved ones are safe and well!

The start of the new term is fast approaching and we are looking forward to having everyone back in school from Tuesday morning. If, for whatever reason, your child will be unable to attend school from Tuesday please let us know as soon as possible. As mentioned in the last newsletter before the summer, I wanted to get in touch this week to share any updates and reinforce what was said back in July (Return to School Plan – September 2020, shared in the newsletter). The DfE guidance for parents has now been updated too (1st September 2020). Please refer to the related documents below:

• A guide what to do if your child has symptoms
• FLOW DIAGRAM FOR PARENTS re covid 19
• Full opening of school during Covid pandemic from 8th March
• Start of term letter 2020

In line with the requirements set out by the Department for Education (DfE) our school is going to continue to operate in whole-class bubbles during the school day. We worked hard before the summer to develop effective systems and routines to help everyone in school feel safe and we are confident that maintaining these systems will continue to be safe and effective as we move into the autumn term. (Please refer to the updated risk assessment to see all of the measures and safety precautions put in place. If you have any questions, please contact the school office and we will be happy to discuss them with you.) The risk assessment is a live document and will be updated as and when necessary. We will keep the website up to date with the most recent version whenever changes are made.

As mentioned in the last newsletter, we are delighted to be able to offer our breakfast club and after school club provision again from Tuesday 8th September - booking information can be found on the school website. Children should be dropped off at and collected from the school entrance vestibule. We will also be able to offer our amazing sports’ clubs again from the second week of term with Mrs Taylor, Mr Loudon and Mr Cairns. More information about this will be sent out next week.

To help us to reduce congestion on the school playground at drop off and collection times, children can continue to arrive at any time between 8.35 and 9am and can be collected any time from 3.05 to 3.20pm. Children are to come straight to their classrooms via the external doors where they will be encouraged to wash / sanitise their hands straight away. Please can we ask that older children (those in KS2) are dropped off at the gate and encouraged to walk themselves up to class. Younger children may be escorted to their classrooms but parents are not allowed to enter the school building under any circumstances. Please observe social distancing at all times.

For collection, please wait outside of your child’s classroom and your child will be sent out to you. Please be patient with us as we need to ensure that all children have sanitised their hands immediately before leaving the site.

The DfE’s latest guidance has stipulated that children and staff in primary schools do not need to wear face masks and we would like to reinforce this. We therefore ask that children do not bring face masks into school with them.

To remove the need for PE kits to be brought into school, we would like all children to continue to come to school dressed in their PE kits on their PE days. For the first half of the autumn term, Years 1, 2, 3 & 4 (Chestnut Class and Elm Class) will have PE on Mondays and Fridays. Years 5 and 6 will have PE on a Wednesday and a Friday. Beech Class will have PE on a Tuesday, but not during the first week – their first session will be on Tuesday 15th September.

Children will be provided with all of the equipment and learning materials that they need so pencil cases must not be brought in. However, it is important that your child does bring in a named water bottle with them every day. Please can we take this opportunity to remind you that children should not bring any toys in from home.

We are going to resume sending home reading books and each class teacher will inform the children (and parents via their curriculum letters) of how each class’ system will work. We will need to enforce a quarantine system for any books brought back into school, in keeping with the current guidance.

If your child develops any symptoms of coronavirus, please do not send them into school but do keep us informed. Please refer to the separate guide to see what you should do if your child becomes unwell.

We are all really excited here at Kirby Hill to get back to school next week and to see all of our children again.

We hope that your children are equally as eager and we look forward to welcoming them back!

I’m looking forward to seeing you all very soon!

Best wishes, Miss Lowe Headteacher