Dear Parents and Carers

Another busy school week is over, and although we have seen shocking figures relating to the pandemic in daily news broadcasts and have witnessed just how much our health service is being stretched, the good news is that numbers in Sefton are steadily falling,   Any contribution that we can make to this as a school community should be welcomed and celebrated.  The children who have been working from home have made us all so proud of their efforts, but also your commitment to supporting your children at this difficult time, and I simply repeat that if there is anything that we can do to help or any individual issues that are causing a problem with remote learning please contact your class teacher via google classroom in the first instance.  If google classroom is the issue, please contact either myself or the school office and we shall do our best to help. 

The children attending school remain in isolated classroom settings with socially distanced lunch time arrangements, their own dedicated member of welfare staff and they shall continue to have their own allocated play area throughout the day. The new infant wash stations are proving a hit with the children and this further helps us to reduce mixing within key stages. 

Thank you for spreading out, particularly at pick up times, and I thank you for taking your children quickly away from this unavoidably congested area.  The quicker you disperse the less the risk.  May I politely remind you to keep dogs at home when picking up your child. 

My single biggest concern is a simple and yet delicate one.  Put simply the numbers of children who have returned this time is five times more than we accommodated in the first lockdown.  Clearly whilst supporting parents, if you are able to manage at home it will help us, as staff on certain days are feeling unable to maintain an environment in which they feel safe and in control.  I monitor each class daily and the systems that Mrs Greenwood and I have put in place are excellent and yet we regularly have numbers between 40% and 50%, and on certain days this figure can be greater.  I appreciate the difficulties that we all face as a school family and our attendance figures are clearly much greater than the alleged national average of around 20%.  I have to say that I do not know of any primary school that is operating with such low attendance figures.

The days and classes that provide the greatest stresses on our school system are Year 1 Tuesday and Wednesday, and Year 6 Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday.  Any changes to your circumstances that would allow you to help relieve the pressure would be greatly appreciated, but I again would like to thank all our families who are helping and doing the best that they can by keeping their children at home as much as they can.

Whilst it seems likely that we still have some way to go with regard to the current national lockdown arrangements I can inform you that I have no plans to open the school during half term which begins Monday 15th February. 

Schools across England have been asked that their staff participate in the NHS test and trace programme from next week.  Although not mandatory, this involves staff taking a lateral flow test at home on Monday and Thursday.  This programme is designed to try to sever infection chains as it is thought that up to a third of adults do not display symptoms.  Simply put if I or any of my staff tested positive with a lateral flow test we would have to contact the office to say that we would not be able to come into school the following day and would have book a pcn test as soon as possible.  If this returned as negative everything would return to normal, however if it was positive everyone including children associated with that class would have to self-isolate for 10 days from the date of the positive pcn test.  Family members would not have to self-isolate unless adults or children within their family displayed symptoms of Covid 19 and then were tested positive. 

Clearly we hope that the lateral flow tests will be negative and show that our school continues to be as Covid free as is possible.  However I must make you aware that there is the possibility that you could be contacted by the school at short notice to inform you, that due to a positive test from a staff member, the class would be shut down for 10 days.   I have arranged the testing times to minimize any potential disruption although clearly this situation is less than ideal.  Should this happen to any class in the future you would receive clear details of what to do.

I had hoped this would be a short message but unfortunately much has happened outside of school which I want to keep you informed about.  I am however pleased and proud to lead our school family and although things do seem grim at the moment your children both in school and at home spray beams of light across our lives and they do seem to be coping remarkably well.  I thank you for your continued support.  Some of you have taken time out from your busy lives to send lovely messages to both myself and the teachers who I can assure you are doing the very best that they can and I do look forward to a time when we can return to more normal arrangements. 

I have asked Fr Grant, as I am asking you now to pray for a number of our school families who have suffered personal loss and desperate sadness and I can only hope that the prayers that you add to mine are some comfort to them. 

With three weeks to go until a more than well-earned break and opportunity to recharge, I wish you a peaceful weekend and once again remind everyone that if they or their children are unwell they must stay away from school and inform us so that we can keep our school as secure as possible.  As ever you know where I am should you feel I can be of any help.

Yours sincerely

Mr D MacAreavy - Headteacher