Information For Parents / Families / School Community – 17th March 2020

Dear Parents / Guardians,

We trust you are all well and taking care of yourselves and your families. As we reported to you on Sunday 15th March, we are in an unprecedented time both in schools, localities, nationally and internationally. Our number one priority is the health and safety of our children, staff, families and our school community. We are receiving the same information from Public Health Wales (PHW) as is being published to the public and we share any communication that we have immediately with yourselves. The Local Authority is advising schools to follow Public Health Wales guidance.

https://phw.nhs.wales/topics/latest-information-on-novel-coronavirus-covid-19/

The latest guidance from Public Health Wales is as follows (16/3/2020):

*People who have returned from Category 1 specified countries or areas in the last 14 days should self-isolate. This includes avoiding attending an education setting or work until 14 days after they return.

Therefore, please inform the school if you have travelled to any of the countries on the list in the last 14 days and do not make an attempt to come in to school until you have had the correct and most up to date advice from medical practitioners.

The latest advice also states that you must stay at home for 14 days if you or a family member you have contact with has:

• a high temperature – you feel hot to touch on your chest or back

• a new, continuous cough – this means you’ve started coughing repeatedly

If your child has ANY of the above symptoms, please DO NOT send them to school. If any child displays these symptoms during the day, you will be contacted immediately. The latest self-isolation advice is as follows -

https://phw.nhs.wales/topics/latest-information-on-novel-coronavirus-covid-19/self-isolation-advice/

If as a parent you feel your child is vulnerable due to an underlying medical condition, then please inform the school and we can use an attendance code for self-isolating if you feel this is the safest option for them.

The safety of all our community is a priority at this time. We have already taken a number of measures in school. These include:

*ensuring regular hand-washing with anti-bacterial hand wash. You can help us with this by also emphasising the importance of washing hands at home.

*children are being reminded of personal hygiene.

*staff are cleaning surfaces with anti-bacterial wipes/spray at regular intervals during the day.

*Computers and electronic devices are being wiped regularly with anti-bacterial wipes.

We have also made the decision to temporarily stop assemblies (collective worship will be conducted in class), reduced the time sitting as a whole class on the carpet and cancellation of school visits to any crowded locations or where the children would come in to contact with large groups from other schools. We are also postponing all after school clubs from Monday 23rd. March except for reading eggs which is an essential intervention.

*All unessential visits / visitors to or out of school will be cancelled.

* Parents Forum- PGA / Governing Body meetings: In consultation with the Chair of Governors, we have decided to postpone our scheduled parents PGA meeting and Governing Body Meetings until after the Easter Holidays.

Can I please request that parent/carers do not visit our school office unless absolutely necessary. Please telephone or email school.

Please ensure you report any absence promptly and advise us regarding the reason for the absence, sickness, voluntary isolation or enforced isolation.

There is a possibility that it may become necessary to close the school in the future and we will take advice from the relevant agencies. Any closure could be partial or whole school in either the short term (for example, for a deep clean, or where staff levels become critically low) or longer term as advised by the Local Authority or Welsh Government. We are aware that we may get very little notice of school closures and therefore we are planning at a number of levels behind the scenes so that we are prepared for a short or a longer-term closure. If this does become necessary, we will prepare a simple package of learning for the children to complete at home. As you will be aware, this situation and therefore advice, is changing on a daily basis. We will keep parents updated of any changes via Twitter, email and our school website. Please check your messages daily.

We hope you understand the necessity of any measures we will need to take over the coming weeks and thank you in advance for your support in keeping our community safe for all.

Kindest regards,

Mr. D. J. Phillips

Headteacher

Mr. C. Marensi

Chair of Governors