Dear parents and carers

Firstly, on behalf of the staff of Cleaswell Hill School, Happy New Year.

There is a lot of speculation in the media regarding schools closing.  The current situation for us at 10am Monday 4/1/20 is that we expect to be open tomorrow.  Please regularly check our Facebook and website pages for updates as I expect there to be significant national restrictions introduced which may affect the numbers of pupils we can have in school over the coming days/weeks.

I realise a lot of parents/carers will be very anxious about children returning to school this week due to the current rate of Covid transmission, the Department of Education has said that special school pupils do not need to return this week in order to give school time to test all staff in school.   If you would prefer your child not to return to school this week (which is fine with us, in fact it would help staff the testing) please inform the school office and school transport and a remote learning pack will be sent out by the class teacher.

We will also be rolling out testing to some of our secondary age pupils (11+ years) this will not be compulsory as some of our pupils would find the procedure too stressful. A consent letter will be posted home to applicable pupils and posted on Facebook /website in the next few days.  Please do not get stressed about the test, if you think your child would not be able to cope with it that is fine.

Unfortunately, I expect us to have further Covid cases in school (if we continue to stay fully open) forcing us to isolate phases as we had to in October/November.  If this happens work packs will be sent home and contact will be maintained by your child’s class teacher.  Also if we are unable to safely staff class groups we will have to close areas of the school.  We will give you as much notice as possible.

I’m sorry to have to start the New Year off in this way.  However, I’m confident that this term will see a significant reduction in the rate of transmission of the pandemic.  Please bear with us over the next few months as we endeavour to keep pupils, their families and staff safe.

Thank you for your support.

Mike