This week, we’ve had to close Year 5,6 bubbles in two of the three Sphere schools. This is such a shame, but really does highlight that Covid-19 is still out there.
Testing for Covid-19 at home
In one of the situations, the bubble closing stemmed from a pupil who had tested positive at home with a home testing kit (a lateral flow device test, or LFD test). The family then went to get tested again, this time using the central test sites where the tests are processed in labs (a polymerase chain reaction test, or PCR test) and the test result was positive.
This shows the value of doing the home-testing. It helps spot cases when someone has Covid with no symptoms, but can still spread the virus. (These are called asymptomatic cases.)
If a pupil has symptoms of Covid they should get a PCR test. A home LFD test isn’t enough – a negative LFD test for a person with symptoms isn’t sufficient evidence that they are negative. If your child has symptoms of Covid, or just doesn’t seem right in any way, please don’t send them to school.
In the situation described above, we’re grateful to the family for spotting a positive case, keeping children away from school, and therefore helping to stop the spread of Covid.
And a couple of non-Covid news items…
Does your child use Omegle?
You may have read some worrying reports recently about a chatroom website called Omegle. The website has as its tag line ‘Talk to Strangers’ – as you can imagine it’s for 18s and over.
We’ve had some worrying reports that younger children have been accessing this website and may have seen some inappropriate things.
Please check your child’s device regularly.
We’re a happy and healthy place to work!
Scholes (Elmet) Primary is a happy and healthy place to learn, but we’re proud to be a happy and healthy place to work, too.
Every year in the Summer Term, we ask you to complete an annual survey – it’s always good to hear your views. Every two years, we also ask staff to complete a survey – the most recent was in February.
We’re delighted that across all three schools in Sphere Federation, 100% of staff agreed that pupils’ behaviour is good and that pupils are safe. You might think staff would say this, but the survey is an opportunity to ‘tell it how it is’ in an anonymous way, so these outcomes are great.
Other questions related to staff wellbeing and workload; leadership; the curriculum; and assessments. The outcomes in these areas were also really high – typically over 95%.
Typical comments from staff at Scholes (Elmet) Primary are:
- ‘I have worked at Scholes school for a long time and have never felt more supported. The school has been on quite a journey over the past few years and I now feel that it is in a really great place.’
- ‘Safeguarding is a high priority.’
- ‘Leadership have been really considerate of mental wellbeing, especially during the pandemic. They are fair and supportive.’
- ‘Roles are clearly defined and all staff across the federation know who to go to if they need support.’
- ‘All of the Federation schools are really supportive of one another and the joined up thinking really helps staff. This has been especially noticeable whilst we have all been dealing with lockdown.’
Finally today, I found out that one of the fans of our daily / weekly messages is Miss Hague’s mum, so I’d like to say a big hello to her, and a happy Mothers Day to her, and of course to all mums!