Arrangements for school full re-opening March 2021

I am sure that, like us, you are really looking forward to the children returning to school on Monday. The school will be fully open to all from Nursery to Y6. I would like to thank parents and carers for the great efforts that have gone into supporting children with their remote learning during this difficult time.

Please read to the end of this long post, as there is important Teacher Training Day news at the bottom.

The arrangements in school on Monday will be very similar to how we were operating in the autumn term, with a few enhancements to our COVID measures:

• Even less mixing of the classes within year groups, with the exception of outdoor break/lunch Y1-6

• Staff wearing face coverings more extensively

• Routine Lateral Flow Device testing of staff twice a week

Most importantly, we will continue with the measures that have, thus far, contributed to a relatively good record as regards COVID in school:

• Staggered starts and finishes, with parents wearing face coverings on-site and not crowding around entrances

• High frequency of hand washing with hot water and soap, or sanitiser, throughout the day

• Zoning of outdoor play

• Additional disinfecting of shared equipment

• Seating in pairs facing forward in Y3-6

• Adults and children remaining at home and getting a test if they feel unwell with COVID-like symptoms

The full revised risk assessment is here: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1tYfqa59-3XbAPyFJt7J9ds0R2Ts8IP87HfzZnV285-k/edit?usp=sharing

Start and finish times

To avoid congestion on paths, yards and cloakrooms, we will reinstate staggered start and finish times.

Nursery will have their usual hours.

RPK (Miss Pinnock), 1G, 2Lo  8.45 – 3.05

RPT (Mrs Puddiphatt), 1B, 2La  8.55 – 3.15

3B, 4K, 5L and 6S   8.40 – 3.10

3E, 4C, 5W and 6J   8.50 – 3.20

The times have changed slightly from the autumn term to reflect feedback about the amount of time some families were having to wait. If you had bespoke drop off/collection arrangements with class teachers, please confirm with them directly if these need to continue. Our preference remains for Y5 to be dropped off and collected from the Access Garden where possible, but some can come in through the Y6 entrance if this is inconvenient. RPT will enter via the double doors as before.

Please do not crowd around entrances: keep 2m+ apart from other adults. As I recall, Y1 families have been particularly good at lining up!

Please do not arrive early.  Remember that the Pudsey Civic car park remains free to our families at the start and end of the day. You should not be using the school car parks unless disabled or with prior agreement from the school e.g. for pupils with SEND.

Assessment and  Parents’ Evening

We will have just under 4 weeks with the children before Easter. We need to settle the children back into school routines and then we will be carrying out a wide range of assessments with the children to help us plan future learning and any interventions. Given that we wouldn’t be doing this in the first week or so, it would be very hard to complete all these assessments, mark them and analyse them prior to the planned Parents’ Evenings at the end of March. Those Parents’ Evenings will therefore be moved to early in the summer term (mid to late April) when we will have a better picture of the children’s attainment and the need for any intervention.

Extra-Curricular Clubs and Fun Club

We won’t be running school extracurricular clubs before Easter and will review things then. Fun Club will be open immediately and will run an infant and junior bubble. This is in line with government guidance for this sort of provision.

Chromebooks

All Chromebooks need to come into school on Monday. Y4-6 will bring theirs to school as normal (fully charged, without the power lead). Chromebooks lent to other year groups must be returned on Monday please with their power lead.  Please pass these to a member of staff in a plastic bag at the door. We know of issues with about 5% of the 250+ Chromebooks that we have lent out; let us know if there is an issue we are unaware of.

Returning equipment and books

Please return whiteboards, rulers, White Rose Maths booklets, any reading scheme books and class readers (typically, novels sent home in KS2 learning packs) on Monday. We won’t need all the sheet-based work that the children have done over the past 8 weeks unless there is something that the child particularly wants to show their teacher.

Peripatetic Music Instrument Lessons

We expect Roundhay Music lessons and recorder lessons to start after Easter. We will write separately about this.

Trips and Residentials

No school trips other than Y4 swimming are currently permitted. We have provisionally rebooked Y6 residential for July and will write separately about this. We are currently unclear as to whether we will be able to do Y5 residential.

School Lunches

School lunches will be served to all pupils that wish to take them. We are assuming the same children will take lunch as was the case in December unless you tell us differently. Seating arrangements may change as classes won’t mix whilst eating.

Family testing – adults

Lateral Flow Test kits for adults in families with primary-age children are available from Pudsey Civic PCR test site if you wish to ask for some. Children of primary school age are not required to do routine home testing.  LFD tests can also be ordered online: https://www.gov.uk/order-coronavirus-rapid-lateral-flow-tests

Y4 swimming

Y4 swimming will recommence on Wednesday 10th March.

Remote meetings

Meetings with parents will continue to be held remotely in almost all cases. Please call or email school rather than coming in in person without an appointment.

Medical updates

If there are any medical updates for your child, please contact the school office before Monday.

Staffing Issues

• Mr Beevers continues to be off and 3B will be taken by Mrs Salma Begum.  Mrs Begum has been working in school with Y3 throughout Lockdown.

• Miss Chambers is shielding until 18th March. 4C will be taken by Mr Hemming (and Ms Howells) until that time.

• Some other support staff are shielding and we will contact families affected directly.

• We welcome Miss Sanah Asghar to the school in the Early Years.

Training Days

We have been delaying our training days as long as we can to maximise children’s time in school. We had already announced July 26th and 27th as training days. We have three more that we have to take. These will be taken on:

• Monday 7th June

• Thursday 22nd July

• Friday 23rd July

The dates at the end of July will also help us get an earlier start to the considerable capital works planned for the summer, especially in the infants.

We are really looking forward to seeing everyone on Monday.