Coronovirus - update (13 March 2020)
If you’ve been reading previous updates, you’ll know that schools receive a daily update from the Department for Education about coronavirus. Today’s update focuses on the news from yesterday afternoon about self-isolation:
To support the delay of the spread of the virus, the Department for Health and Social Care has asked anyone who shows certain symptoms to stay at home for 7 days, regardless of whether they have travelled to affected areas. This means people should stay at home and avoid all but essential contact with others for 7 days from the point of displaying mild symptoms, to slow the spread of infection.
The symptoms are:
A high temperature (37.8 degrees and above)
A new, continuous coughYou do not need to call NHS 111 to stay at home. If your symptoms worsen during your stay at home period or are no better after 7 days contact NHS 111 online at 111.nhs.uk. If you have no internet access, you should call NHS 111. For a medical emergency dial 999.
The email also presents the government’s rationale around keeping schools open:
Current advice remains in place: no education or children’s social care setting should close in response to a suspected or confirmed COVID-19 case unless advised to do so by Public Health England.
The Chief Medical Officer has advised that the impact of closing schools on both children’s education and on the workforce will be substantial, but the benefit to public health may not be. Decisions on future advice to schools will be taken based on the latest and best scientific evidence, which at this stage suggests children are a lower risk group.
Separate to the update from government, we have three things to say…
Thank you
Thank you to the parents who have expressed some sympathy and understanding about the situation for schools, such as ‘I appreciate it must be a very busy and challenging time’ – we’re grateful that our parents are so supportive.
- If you do notice it’s taking us a bit longer to respond to you, please bear with us.
- And to help us, if you do have general questions about the outbreak, do consider contacting the national hotline, which might well be able to provide you with better answers than we can.
Hand cream
Some of you have let us know your child’s hands are dry because of all the hand washing. If this is the case, your child can bring in some hand cream – please let staff at the school office know.
Governors
A small number of you have asked what our governors are doing about the outbreak. Guidance to governors is:
The best and most appropriate way for governing boards to support their school leaders is to allow them to manage the school’s response without the involvement of the board, unless it is requested. School leaders themselves are guided by public health advice.
Coronovirus - update 2 (12 March 2020)
Today, the government has published guidance to self-isolate for people with confirmed or possible coronavirus (COVID-19) infection.
The most common symptoms of coronavirus (COVID-19) are recent onset of a continuous cough and/or high temperature.
If you have symptoms of coronavirus infection (COVID-19), however mild, stay at home and do not leave your house for 7 days from when your symptoms started.
If your child displays these symptoms at home, please do not send him/her to school. Equally, if we notice your child is displaying these symptoms, we will ask you to collect your child from school – they wouldn’t be well enough to be in school, and may spread the virus.
We’ll continue to follow the government advice and update you.
Success at the West Yorkshire cross country finals
Well done to our wildcard entry into the West Yorkshire cross country finals. Out of all of the year 6 girls in West Yorkshire, she came 15th – AMAZING! We are so proud of you.
Coronovirus - update (12 March 2020)
We’re all aware of current concerns about coronavirus. We believe the right actions to take as a school are those that match the government’s advice based on scientific and medical evidence. We will continue to follow this. You’ll be aware that we’ve been communicating with you frequently about this. The Department for Education emails daily to schools with any new advice or other updates. Today’s email is below, in full.
This is your daily email to keep you updated on the government’s response to COVID-19 (coronavirus).
Government coronavirus action plan
The government coronavirus action plan sets out what the UK has done to tackle coronavirus (COVID-19), and what we plan to do next.
The situation is constantly reviewed and action informed by expert science and advice, guided by the Chief Medical Officer and the Chief Scientific Adviser.
The action plan can be found here.
Action plan recap
The action plan sets out a four-phased approach in response to coronavirus – Contain, Delay, Mitigate, and Research, based on the latest scientific evidence.
The current emphasis is on the Contain and Research phases, however planning for Delay and Mitigation is already in train.
As part of the Contain phase, we have been providing advice to educational settings in England. We also launched a DfE helpline to manage the flow of increasing queries, from providers parents and young people.
How to wash your hands properly
Wash your hands more often for 20 seconds with soap and hot water.
Watch this short NHS film for guidance.
Teach young children how to wash their hands with the NHS handwashing song.
Public Health England recommends that in addition to handwashing before eating, and after coughing and sneezing, everyone should also wash hands after using toilets and travelling on public transport.
Department for Education coronavirus helpline
The Department for Education coronavirus helpline is available to answer questions about COVID-19 relating to education and children’s social care. Staff, parents and young people can contact this helpline as follows:
- Phone: 0800 046 8687
- Opening hours: 8am to 6pm (Monday to Friday)
Please note, we are currently experiencing high volumes of calls and apologise for any wait that you may experience. Your call will join a queue and we will answer as soon as possible.
If you work in a school, please have your unique reference number (URN or UKPRN) available when calling the helpline.
Where to find the latest information
- Updates on COVID-19
- Guidance for educational settings
- Guidance for social or community care and residential settings
- Travel advice for those travelling and living overseas
Educational resources
- https://campaignresources.phe.gov.uk/resources/campaigns/101-coronavirus-/resources
- https://campaignresources.phe.gov.uk/schools
Latest Department for Education information
Finally, to reassure you, it’s worth remembering this, from the World Health Organization: ‘Illness due to COVID-19 infection is generally mild, especially for children and young adults.’
Coronavirus - update
We’re closely following the advice coming from the Department for Education about coronavirus.
They’ve set up a helpline to answer questions about COVID-19 related to education – we’ve called the helpline a couple of times and been reassured that what we’re doing in school matches their advice. You can contact the helpline, too:
- Phone: 0800 046 8687
- Email: DfE.coronavirushelpline@education.gov.uk
- Opening hours: 8am to 6pm (Monday to Friday)
The advice remains that no school should close in response to a suspected (or confirmed) COVID-19 case unless directed to do so by Public Health England. This would only be the case if a child or staff member tested positive to the virus. (If a parent were to test positive, we’d ask the child to stay at home to self-isolate. This is the advice from the government.)
The government is not advising schools to cancel or postpone any events, whether this be swimming sessions, school trips, concerts or PTA events. As before, we’ll continue to follow government advice.
Everyone knows that personal hygiene is the most important way we can tackle COVID-19. We’ve done lots in school to promote this message – please do the same at home. For example, make sure your child coughs or sneezes into a tissue, or into their elbow sleeve (the ‘vampire method’, which we’ve promoted for many years).
Training days, 2020-21
We know many of you like to plan well in advance and that sorting out our school dates helps with this.
The training days for 2020-21 are all confirmed:
- Friday 23 October
- Monday 04 January
- Friday 14 May (This is the day after the Year 6 SATs – a welcome day off to celebrate their hard work!)
- Monday 26 July
- Tuesday 27 July
Open sessions
Our school is proud of the open sessions we have throughout the year that allow you to learn more about how to support your child. We want to continue with these as much as we can, whilst also paying due regard to government advice about coronavirus.
If there are sessions scheduled, please assume these are still happening. This includes and open session such as a Relax and Read or Stay and Play session in Early Years, and the Easter Year 3,4 production.
If you have any symptoms of the virus, you should not attend.
If you’ve been advised to self-isolate, you should not attend.
Obviously, it’s always your choice as to whether you attend these sorts of events. If you do attend, all we ask is that you follow as much of the advice about good hygiene as you can: wash your hands if this is available (come in early to do this), or use a hand sanitiser; also, make sure you cough or sneeze into a tissue.
More information from the NHS about the virus, including its symptoms, can be found here:
https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/coronavirus-covid-19/
How many children have been asked to change or undress in a video chat?
You might be surprised and concerned to read it’s almost 1 in 10 children.
A survey of 40,000 children found that nearly 1 in 10 pupils who video chat with people they haven’t met have been asked to change or undress, and more than 1 in 20 pupils who livestream have been asked to change or undress.
Parents and professionals are often aware of issues around teens being coerced or tricked into getting undressed or revealing themselves online. (Read more about this.)
However, what do we need to say to the youngest pupils, and why?
For young primary pupils, check out this video, song and poster to help communicate the message of never getting undressed in front of a phone, iPad or computer.
A common tactic of sexual predators is to trick young children into getting changed or undressed on camera by playing a ‘game’ or issuing a ‘challenge’, for example, to see how fast they can get changed into different clothes or into a swimming costume. This might happen over video chat or a livestreaming app; videos are often taken and then circulated. Children often don’t even know this has happened.
Research has shown that 98% of publicly available livestreamed child sexual abuse images involved children aged 13 and under; 28% were aged 10 and under.
Thank you for helping us help Sport Relief
We started our Sport Relief fundraising a week early because we were expecting BBC Look North coming to launch the Big Summit Sofa challenge. Unfortunately, we were let down and they postponed the event at the last minute last night. We are resilient and resourceful at Scholes though and were determined to make it a happy and healthy day anyway. We completed nearly an hour of Wake Up Shake Up routines and raised £219.24 for Sport Relief. Thank you to everyone who sent contributions in and to the people who came to watch and support us!
POSTPONED - Big Sofa Summit for Sport Relief 6 March
We have had a message from the BBC tonight saying,
We have taken the difficult decision to postpone the Big Summit Sofa Challenge until later in the year. Our role is to deliver our audience the best possible coverage and to do that we need every member of our team on duty.
We are all so disappointed but we will still be dressing in our sports kits and raising money for Sport Relief by doing an extended Wake Up Shake Up dance-athon session as one of our sports challenges. Feel free to come and watch from 9am.
