15 May School Update Friday 15th May 2020
SCHOOL UPDATE FRIDAY 15TH MAY 2020
No doubt you will have heard the Prime Minister on Sunday say that from 1st June, “we believe we may be in a position to begin the phased reopening of shops, and to get primary pupils back into schools, in stages, beginning with reception, Year 1 and Year 6”.
This was followed on Monday by the Department for Education sending to schools information which contained the statement, “with further progress we may be able… to welcome back more children to early years, school and further education settings. We will only do this provided that the five key tests set by government justify the changes at the time, including that the rate of infection is decreasing.”
This was followed on Wednesday with the Communities Secretary stating at the government’s daily briefing that schools, “may open as long as data allows.”
With this guidance we have begun planning for what an extended opening at Alexandra may look like. Planning for a possible extended opening is not the same as being able to implement an extended opening.
Many factors are having to be considered before we could extend the opening of the school to larger groups of children. At the forefront of our mind is how we can ensure the safety of our staff team as we attempt to apply the social distancing and hygiene requirements in place to ensure that school does not become a vehicle for increasing infection rates, and therefore putting our school community, including staff, children and families at increased and unnecessary risk.
Families with children in nursery, reception, year 1 and year 6 have been contacted for us to begin to gather views on how they feel about possibly extending opening. We will take the comments included in the feedback as part of our action planning process. We understand that for many families the prospect of extending school opening for your children would be a real concern until you feel it could be done safely for all involved.
Mrs Conway has added the link below to the school website to support children with ideas for story writing whilst at home.
https://www.talk4writing.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/Making-Up-Stories.pdf
Other website links for galleries and museums to support learning and expand your interest in the arts and history include a chance to take a tour of the resources in the
British Museum britishmuseum.org
or the Renaissance art of the National Gallery nationalgallery.org.uk
or to look at videos about art and be inspired to make your own art creations at home tate.org.uk/kids
Enjoy your weekend and continue to access the home learning. As always if you have any questions or concerns do not hesitate to contact us via email at admin@alexprimary.haringey.sch.uk or call 020 8888 9771.
School will be closed to all children for the half term break; Monday 25th May – Friday 29th May