Plans for re-opening
We have now put letters on the website with the routines and safe practices that will be introduced to get your children safely back to school.
As well as the letter below for the whole school there are also letters for the children of keyworkers, reception children and for year 6 on the Parents Letter Page
Dear Parents and Carers,
As you can imagine, we have been incredibly busy trying our very best to make school as safe as it possibly can be as we expand our opening to more year groups. I explained before that school will look very different for the children on their return. Each year group will send a letter with specific information for that cohort outlining some of the measures in place. I appreciate that I am providing a great deal of information within this letter but I hope it will help you to understand how school life will have to change for the time being.
We hope that one day soon our school life will be able to return to the way it was before when we loved to see you all and share your children’s school journey. Please remember the new routines described within this letter are to keep everyone safe so we ask for your co-operation and support during this difficult period. When schools re-open we will welcome Year R back first, followed by Year 6 once Year R have completed 3 school days. We hope to welcome our Year 1 children back once Year 6 are settled but the date for this cannot be predicted yet – we will however, be in touch with Year 1 parents as mentioned later in the letter.
We appreciate that families will have their own circumstances to consider prior to children returning to school and some of you may be shielding and protecting family members. We also understand that many of you may be anxious about your children returning to school even though we will do all we can to make school as safe as possible. Therefore, we will not impose any sanctions for non-attendance if your child does not return to school on the suggested date.
in order that we keep the number of people in school to a minimum, parents will not be able to come into the school office and we will ask that communication continues to be by telephone and email. For the protection of the community, we will be operating strict staggered start and finishing times for different year groups. We will have school adults on the gates to support safe entry and exit routines. Parents of junior children will need to leave them at the school gate so that they can make their way into school independently. Infant children can be accompanied by one adult, if possible without other children, to their entry door but parents will not be permitted inside the school building. We will clearly sign post the route for each year group’s parents to enter and exit the site and ask that you do this as promptly as possible in order to ensure social distancing is adhered to. With more pupils on site, we will need to ask for your patience as these procedures are likely to take a little time but will ultimately protect your children.
We will provide a map of this information within each year group letter. It will be very important that your children arrive on time and within the allotted slot.
New site access arrangements |
||||
| Start time | Finish time | Group | Gate | Entrance door |
08:50 – 09:00 |
15:15 – 15:30 |
Key worker | Main entrance | Main Reception |
09:00 – 09:15 |
15:00 – 15:15 |
Year 6 | Bottom Playground | Year 5 classroom doors / Year 6 side door |
09:15 – 09:30 |
14:45 – 15:00 |
Year 1 | Strouden Court entrance | Key Stage 1 playground doors |
09:30 – 10:00 |
14:30 – 14:45 |
Year R | Main entrance | Library / Hall door |
Sadly, we will not be able to offer any breakfast club or after school provision.
Lunchtimes and breaktimes will also be staggered and look very different for the children. Each year group will have designated spaces for indoor and outdoor activity. The designated outdoor space will be used on a rota basis by the year group and any equipment cleaned before the point of changeover. Cleaning routines have been increased and all adults will ensure that new measures for cleaning the site and equipment are maintained. Children will have their lunch at their own workspace within the classroom. We will be offering a packed lunch option to purchase or provided for children entitled to free school meals. A new menu will be created and you will be able to view this on the school website. If you have been receiving the free school meal vouchers, these will cease on your child’s return to school. The children will have a range of activities during the day and some of these will involve leisure times in place of the previous break time. The children will use outdoor space as often as possible as we know that being outside is encouraged within the safety measures.
Classrooms in school are being prepared for the re-opening having been deep cleaned and stripped of soft toys and furnishings. We have made the classes as easy to clean as possible. With this in mind it is very important that children only bring to school what is absolutely necessary; a named water bottle and lunch box. They will not be allowed to bring bags into school in order to minimise unnecessary contact between homes. Sun block must be applied before leaving home every day as we will not be able to do this in school.
Promoting regular hygiene routines, including regular hand washing are built into the school day and will be overseen by the teachers.
The children can wear school uniform or school appropriate clothing which we request is washed at the end of each school day, with the children returning in fresh clothing every day which will again lower the risk of infection. It is important that footwear continues to be sensible for outdoor activities; inappropriate footwear may mean that children will not be able to take part in an activity (or, in Year R, use the outside equipment).
Year R children will be welcomed back to school on the date that the government will announce. Initially they will be the only year group in addition to those currently attending in order that we can establish safe working practices for children, parents and staff. Year R children will be put into new teaching groups and although the Year R staff will be working with the children, they will be joined by staff from across the school in order that we can keep the adult to child ratio low. Following the guidance that we have received, the children will be in a group of 10 working with 2 adults; each adult overseeing a group of 5 children. These groups will be fixed, remaining the same every day and the children will not be able to mix with children in the other groups of 10. This enables us to minimise their social contact and therefore lower the risk of infection. All activities will be taken in these groups including lunchtime and breaktime. Each child will have their own workspace and equipment which other children will not be permitted to use. At times the Year R children will be able to socially interact with others in their small group as the government recognises that it is not possible for young children to socially distance at all times; this will mean that they are able to play with others who are in their ‘bubble’ group of 10. Adults will be able to be within close contact of your children when needed and we will do our best to make protective measures for staff such as gloves, aprons and face coverings something that the children do not need to worry about. We will help the children to understand and become familiar with these routines and measures. Activities will be designed with the safety of children and staff in mind.
Year 1
Year 1 children will not be able to return to school until we are confident that both the Year R and Year 6 cohorts are settled and routines are safe. This is likely to be a minimum of 7 school days following the date that Year R children return and even then, will only be able to happen if we have enough space and staff at that point. The organisation of year 1 will be very similar to Year R but with 2 adults working with a maximum of 15 children; each adult overseeing a group of 7/8 children. The Year 1 staff team will be contacting the parents of every Year 1 child during the first week of June to discuss these arrangements and to answer your questions.
Our Year 6 children will be able to return after the Year R children have been in school for 3 days. This will ensure that routines are established and create a safer environment for all children and staff on site. This is such an important time for them as they prepare to transfer to secondary school. Although transition plans will be different this year, we remain in contact with the secondary schools and will be working with them to support your children. Sadly, we know that many of the activities that our Year 6 children look forward to won’t be able to happen this year because of the necessary safety measures in place. The team will endeavour to make the last few weeks at Warren Park as positive as possible but the organisation of classes will add limitations to this. The children will be placed into fixed groups of between 10 – 15 children. Each child will have their own desk and equipment. The desks will be as spaced out as far possible to encourage social distancing and all school routines have been devised to ensure that the children maintain social distancing throughout the day. The government acknowledges that there may be times when children pass each other within corridors but we will keep this to a minimum using the routines that we now have in place. Adults from other year groups will join the Year 6 team in order to keep the smaller group size. Each group will remain the same every day and will not mix with the other Year 6 groups during the school day.
All of the above measures rely on us having enough staff in school. If we have staff shortages, we may not be able to keep school open for all groups of children.
We would also ask that you maintain the government’s social distancing policy on your journey to and from school as well as leaving the site and surrounding area as quickly as possible. This will help us to keep everyone as safe as we possibly can.
As you can see, school life will look very different for a while and we look forward to the day when we can welcome all of our children back to school. We will continue to support on-line learning through the use of the website although teachers from all year groups will now be back working at school with new classes for the time being so may not be able to respond to emails as rapidly as before.
We hope that you are all well and staying safe. We look forward to the day that we can see you once again!
Best wishes,
Elizabeth Cooper
Guess the staff competition
As you may have seen lately, lots of people have been doing photo challenges. Posting photos of people when they were young. Inspired by this we would like to set you a photo challenge. We have collected photos of the Warren Park staff when they were babies and toddlers. What we haven’t done is told you who is who. Can you spot your teachers? Which photo is of which member of staff? You can use the class list on the Warren Park Website to help you to remember all of our names. In about a weeks’ time we will post the names of the staff under their picture and you can see if you were correct. Have fun (some of your teachers used to be really cute).
The gallery of photos can be found on our new Gallery page under the children’s section.
