Dear Parents, 

I thought I would write to give you an update on the planned procedures for opening our school from the 8^th of June.

I am planning for the school to open its doors to Year 6, Year 1, Reception children and the Key workers’ children from Monday the 8^th of June.

In formulating a plan for this I have continued to work with County advisors, Governors, Headteachers and staff and have prioritised the welfare of children and staff.

The school will operate in four specific ‘bubbles’ of children who will have certain staff assigned to them. These ‘bubbles’ are to be kept as separate from each other as feasibly possible. I have worked on developing the risk assessments, behaviour policies, contingency plans etc. to match this ideal.

The school will be open for children in Year 6, 1 and Reception from Monday through to Thursday, where the children and staff will operate in their individual ‘bubble’.

The Key workers ‘bubble’ will still be available for qualifying children from Monday though to Friday.

Even though the government guidance says for primary school age children-

“We know that, unlike older children and adults, early years and primary age children cannot be expected to remain 2 metres apart from each other and staff. In deciding to bring more children back to early years and schools, we are taking this into account.”

The school will operate, as much as reasonably possible, social distancing regimes, which does include socially distancing adults during drop offs and pick up. Therefore, after 8:30am on a daily basis the car park will be pedestrianised and we will ask you to line up with your children in the marked bays. There will be a one way system in place, where parents will drop off children in the car park area (at their designated time mentioned below) and then walk through the playground and out through the passage that exits next to the War Memorial Club. No cars will be allowed to operate in the school car park during drop off and pick up times. 

The timings for drop offs and pick-ups will be specific to which ‘bubble’ your child is in and are as follows.

Drop off timings-

Key Workers 8:45am

Year 6 children 9am

Year 1 children 9:15am

Reception Children 9:30am

Your child will be greeted by a member of staff and ushered into the school and immediately asked to wash their hands. Could you please speak to your children about the importance of hand washing as this will happen in regular intervals over the course of the school day. 

Pick up timings-

Reception children 2:45 pm

Year 1 children 3pm

Year 6 children 3:15pm

Key Workers Children 3:30pm

If you could once again go to the car park to collect your child at your allocated time. Your child will be brought to you and we ask that you leave the school grounds promptly following the one way system.

If you have more than one child attending in more than one ‘bubble’, I would ask that you drop off at the first child’s time and also pick up at the first child’s pick up time.

Contact with school staff will need to be kept at a minimum, therefore if you have any queries please e-mail or phone in.

My reasoning for this is a combination of staffing and health & safety considerations. Fridays will be used by the staff to set work for children who are still at home and this will also give the opportunity for the school to initiate deep cleaning once a week to augment the daily cleaning routines. I have attempted this way rather than a part time morning or afternoon set to hopefully minimise disruption to people’s working regimes.

If your child is eligible to return to school, but you have decided not to take up the offer could you please e-mail Miss Newman at kat.newman@buxworth.derbyshire.sch.uk if you have not already done so. This will help us with numbers and to organise supervision. Likewise, if you would like your child to have a hot school dinner on any days over the course of the week, could you please let us know which days you would like the meals on, by Thursday the 4^th of June (even if they are Key Stage 1 universal free school meals). This will help the cook with ordering and planning meals for the following week. The children will be expected to be in school uniform when at school unless it is on a day when they are participating in P.E or Forest Schools and on those days they can wear the appropriate attire for the whole day, this will reduce the amount of bags and kit being brought into school. You will be informed of when the children are participating in these lessons later in the week. I would ask that you only send your child in with a coat and a drinks bottle. They may of course bring in a packed lunch if they are not having school dinners. Please do not send in book bags.

As you will remember from previous e-mails, the Government guidance states that if you have children in other year groups (2,3,4 & 5), they are still to remain at home for the time being, even if they are a sibling of a child attending school.

With regards to those children who are remaining at home, the staff will continue to set work on the school website and the virtual assemblies will still be continuing, so please carry on sending in your weekly nominations for silver awards.

All procedures will be monitored and reviewed as the situation evolves and the school does reserve the right to adjust, change or alter plans in accordance with local issues, updated medical, Government or County advice.

As you will probably imagine this is a fluid process and unprecedented situation and I appreciate your support in implementing the plan. With your help I can hope for the smoothest transition of children back to school as feasibly possible.

If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to contact me.