Thursday 19th March 2020
Dear Parents,

School closure – Provision of care for the children of key workers

As you will be aware the school is closing on Friday 20 March 2020 and will not be open again for the foreseeable future.
Although at the time of writing, the government has not published any guidance for schools, we know that we are able to make provision for the children of key workers.
We will understand the extent of what we are being asked to do once guidance is published but at the moment we believe that the offer of the provision will be made to families where couples or single parents are key workers. The list of occupations has also not been issued but we assume that it will cover a wide range of services and professions.
In order to plan our next steps, we need to identify which of our children would qualify for this provision.
If you think your job is listed below, and you can provide us with some evidence of your current role (ID badge, contract, service website that identifies you) we will then be able to plan our provision which will begin on Monday 23 March 2020.

Potential List
The list is expected to include:
• Medical professionals including doctors, nurses, midwives, paramedics etc.
• Other health workers – such as employment in a medical/health setting
• Community safety – police force and fire brigade
• Education – teachers, workers in a school or a pre-school setting
• Supermarket workers
• Delivery drivers
• Anyone working in “critical infrastructure”
• Children with Education or Health Care Plans
• Vulnerable children with social worker intervention

We are working with the other local schools in the Corbet catchment area. Once we have numbers, we may need to work on a rotation of staff and schools, so your child may be cared for in one of the local schools. It is very likely that we will pool staff in Baschurch and Myddle, but please be aware that this could extend to the other schools as well. This will ensure that we have the right ratios of adults, children, first aiders and so forth.

Important Action
In the first instance, we would like to hear from you as soon as possible if you think your child is eligible for a place. Please visit the schools’ facebook page and say ‘YES OR NO’ to the survey.
Once we confirm the list from the government, and you would want to take up this offer of child care, email admin@baschurch.shropshire.sch.uk or admin@myddle.shropshire.sch.uk and include a photo or scan of your proof of occupation.
On Monday 23rd March, these children should go to their usual school if they are eligible. Any other children who do not fit this criteria must stay at home.

We will start to draft out a plan while we wait for official guidance from the DFE and our own local authority.

If you have any questions please do not hesitate to get in touch. Many thanks for your patience.

Kind regards,

Mrs Clare Williams
Executive Headteacher

For you information:

The Parenting Team will continue our service of telephone consultations. Parents and carers simply need to call our office on 01743 250950 or email parenting.team@shropshire.gov.uk to arrange a consultation at a time convenient to them.

Taking the current situation into account our team can support parents and carers with:

• managing difficult questions and worries from children due to the current situation
• managing challenging behaviour which might be a result of the changes to their everyday lives
• suggestions on activities with children

In the current situation and with schools closed this might become a lifeline for parents and carers.

We are sadly cancelling the parent/toddler session on Fridays for the foreseeable future

Apologises for the inconvenience this may cause

Regards

Mrs Smith

17th March 2020

Dear parents and carers,

I have received several emails today from worried families, some with symptoms and some choosing to self-isolate due for their own reasons.
If you are worried – keep your child at home. Parents should make their own decision and many of you have; our numbers are very low today and we have also had to send several children home during the day. Whatever decision you make will have my full support. Under these exceptional circumstances it will not affect their register mark. I would rather a child miss school for a short period of time than lose a relative for life. I have a duty of care to protect children and in a wider sense their families.

I also have a duty of care to protect the staff workforce. Many of these have their own children, older parents or underlying health conditions themselves.

Although the government are advising the working population to work from home and against mass gatherings, I feel that the education workforce has been overlooked and placed in a vulnerable and unacceptable position where they too could be being exposed to transmission of the virus on a daily basis, coming into contact with children and families. Again I would rather staff miss school for a short period than take the virus home and infect vulnerable family members.

The staff have been working hard on preparing work to be provided on the school website and the school is prepared for closure. This work is optional and of course it will depend on your family circumstances. If your child is ill, they should not try to complete school work. Our teachers will be available to you via Class Dojo during school hours to answer questions about the work, but please appreciate that if we close, many will have their own children to look after and could potentially be ill themselves. In these cases, I would not expect them to be able to correspond with parents.

Current Government advice is that if one person in any household has a persistent cough or fever, everyone living there must stay at home for 14 days. Please follow this advice.

With kind regards,

Mrs C. Williams
Executive Headteacher

Please check your child’s bag for this important letter from Mrs Williams, headteacher. out.

I have attached a copy of this letter for any parent/carers whose children may not be in school at the moment.

If you have any questions PLEASE do not hesitate to get in touch 01939 290834

Regards

Mrs Smith

COVID-19 M

Thank you so very much to everyone who volunteered their time today to tidy around the school grounds, it looks fantastic.

Special Thank you to Mr Savage for organising the troops.

You are all amazing and we appreciate your efforts so much.

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