Our daily message: School in September (update 1)

Our final daily message this week comes from Miss Hague…

We’re really excited to finally be able to welcome back all our pupils to school – and to welcome some new faces, too!

Autumn is for all children – we’re welcoming back all children on Monday 07 September 2020.

The new school year will have lots of things in place to keep making sure school is a happy and healthy and safe place to learn.

We’ve closely considered lots of different aspects to make sure the new school year goes smoothly. Of course, lots of things are subject to change – the government might update guidance and we’ll be evaluating how things go, ready to iron out any glitches as we go along. 

Today, we have some important news about the start and end of the school day.

 We need a way to make sure our 350 children can get in and out of school safely. As we ease out of lockdown, it’s still  important to reduce ‘people traffic’ around school at these busy times. We’ve considered different ways to do this, including these two ways of staggering drop-off and pick-up times…

Option 1: Staggering the start and end times alphabetically by surname

This is the system we used for partial opening in Summer 2. It allows families to drop off siblings at the same time. However, it means that class teaching can’t begin until the last group of children arrive. This reduces the amount of teaching and learning time every day by a significant amount.

Option 2: Staggering the start and end times by class

This allows us to begin teaching the class at the same time so learning time is not reduced – something which the guidance from the Department for Education prioritises. This is what we’ve chosen to do.

*Foundation 2: The timings for our F2 classes will be in place once your child has attended for a few sessions and have built up to attending full-time. Class allocation and an individual transition plan will be emailed to all F2 parents next week.

It’s important to note this is not a window of time in which to drop-off or pick-up so please be punctual. This will help us to keep our community safe by reducing congestion.

We appreciate it may be tricky for families with siblings. Where there’s only a 10 minute gap between siblings, it would help enormously if families can keep to the class times.

If this isn’t possible or there is a 20 minutes gap, families should drop off at the earlier time, taking the child whose class starts first. Alternatively, take the youngest child to the classroom door and allow the older child to head into school on their own.

For example, for a family with a child in Y1/2V (start time 8.30am) and a child in Y5/6M (start time 8.50)… If dropping off siblings at the same time, drop-off both children at 8.30am and pick-up both children at 3.10pm (2.10pm Mondays).

Class teachers know which siblings to expect if children arrive earlier than their allocated class time.

Other things you can do to help

• If you’re waiting in the playground, please ensure your child stands with you and doesn’t mix with other children who may be in a different bubble. Children mixing across bubbles fundamentally undermines our risk assessment.
• Where possible, just one adult should drop-off and pick-up. This reduces the number of adults on site.
• Whilst our playground has always had a community feel about it with people enjoying chatting in groups and catching up with others, during this time, we ask that adults swiftly enter and leave the school grounds.

Senior leaders will be on the playground and will challenge things we feel may compromise the risk assessment. These are uncomfortable conversations for staff and families; please do all you can to support us.

We’ll keep updating you about school in September – Autumn is for all children back again!