Recent letters shared with parents and carers.

• Reopening Information for Parents

  Thu 28 May 2020

  Phase 1 Re-Opening: Information for Parents

   

  Return Dates

  • Children in Year 6 will return on Tuesday 2^nd June.
  • Children in Year 1 will return on Tuesday 9^th June.
  • Children in Reception will return on Tuesday 16^th June.
  • School will only be open Tuesday to Friday for the vast majority of children.
  • Only children in Key Worker Pods 1 or 2 can come to school on a Monday.
  • We will confirm the arrangements for Nursery children as soon as possible.
  • There is currently no date set for a return to school for children in Years 2, 3, 4 or 5.

   

  Groupings

  • Children will be in groups (pods) of up to 15 children.

  Pod	Teachers	Classroom	Start and End Time	Collection Point
  Key Worker Pod 1	Mrs Birtchnell / Mrs Harris (Mon) Miss Featherstone / Miss Friend (Tues, Wed, Thu, Fri)	Onyx	Start: 9am Finish: 3:10pm	KS2 Playground (on yellow spots marked KW P1)
  Key Worker Pod 2	Mrs Brooks-Smith / Miss Smith (Mon / Tues) Mrs Higgs / Ms McGuire (Wed / Thu / Fri) Mrs Beer (mornings)	Sapphire	Start: 8:45am Finish: 3pm	KS2 Playground (on yellow spots marked KW P2)
  Key Worker Pod 3	Mr Kain Mrs Axtell	Coral	Start: 9am Finish: 3pm	KS2 Playground (on yellow spots marked KW P3)
  Year 6 Pod 1	Miss Duggan Mrs Olley	Amethyst	Start: 9:15am  Finish: 3:15pm	Children should wait on red spots on grass by the petal shelter
  Year 6 Pod 2	Mrs Huscroft (Tues-Thur) Mrs Spooner (Fri) Mrs Field	Topaz	Start: 9:15am  Finish: 3:15pm	Children should wait on red spots near the table tennis tables.
  Year 1 Pod 1	Miss Penning Mrs Dowling	Emerald (in new building)	Start: 8:55am Finish: 3pm	KS2 Playground (on blue spots marked Y1 P1)
  Year 1 Pod 2	Miss Walmsley Mrs Reardon	Diamond (in new building)	Start: 8:55am Finish: 3pm	KS2 Playground (on blue spots marked Y1 P2)
  Year 1 Pod 3	Miss Keal Mrs Sharples	Pearl (in new building)	Start: 9:15am  Finish: 3:15pm	KS2 Playground (on blue spots marked Y1 P3)
  Reception Pod 1	Mrs Parsons Mrs Swaine	Garnet	Start: 8:45am  Finish: 3pm	KS1 Playground (on yellow spots marked R P1)
  Reception Pod 2	Miss Edmonds Mrs Prince	Turquoise	Start: 9am  Finish: 3:10pm	KS1 Playground (on yellow spots marked R P2)
  Reception Pod 3	Mrs Reynolds Mrs Smyth	Jade	Start: 8:45am  Finish: 3pm	KS1 Playground (on yellow spots marked R P3)

  • Your child will be allocated a pod by their current class teacher. They will try to take friendship groups into account.
  • You will receive an email stating which pod your child has been allocated to. Please endeavour to stick to the start and finish times to avoid coming into contact with other parents and children.
  • The members of staff identified will be with the pod throughout the day, including break times and lunch times where the two members of staff will cover each other for a break.
  • If your child has not been allocated a place in a pod, because you initially stated they were not returning to school and you change your mind, you must give us notice the week before that you wish your child to start on the next Tuesday.
  • Children in Reception, Year 1 and Year 6, who do start coming to school, are encouraged to attend everyday (provided that they are well) so allow for a continuity of learning.
  • The children from within each pod will not be able to interact with children or adults from other pods within the school. This is to keep the possibility of cross-contamination to a minimum as the government have accepted it is impossible to expect primary school children to fully socially distance.

  Dropping Off and Collecting Arrangements

  • Please see the table above the start and finish times for the school day for each pod of children and the location for dropping off and collecting where appropriate.
  • We ask that parents of children in Year 6 do not enter the school site at all. This will limit the numbers on site and help prepare the children for secondary school. When the children arrive at school they should line up on the red spots (on the grass by the petal shelter for Pod 1 and near the table tennis tables for Pod 2).
  • Please all remain vigilant of social distancing when around the school site and arrive only a couple of minutes before the start / end time for your child’s school day. These have been staggered to help keep you safe.
  • Reception parents and children should use the Pudding Lane entrance only. The small gate will only be for entering and the large gate will only be for exiting. Please do not use the internal path to the KS2 playground.
  • Key Worker and Year 1 parents and children and Year 6 children should enter using the Galley Hill gate only. They should exit using the Gadebridge Road gate only.
  • There are clearly marked waiting spots on the playgrounds for each pod that have been measured out to ensure social distancing. Please wait with your child on them before school and wait for an adult to call your child forward. Parents should not go forward with their child.
  • Children will have their hands squirted with water and soap that they will rinse off when they enter their classroom.
  • At the end of the day, please wait on one of the spots for your child’s pod and your child will be sent to you.
  • The Galley Hill gate will only be available to enter and exit through during the school day if you need to go to the office. Please be aware of others going up and down the path and wait for them at the end to allow for social distancing.
  • Only one parent can attend the school premises to drop off or collect a child (plus siblings where no other childcare is available but they MUST wait with their parent in the marked spaces).
  • You will not be able to speak with pod staff before or after school but the class emails and admin emails, as well as the school answer phone will be monitored for messages that need to be shared.
  • We ask that only one parents steps inside the school office area at a time. There will be markings for others who are waiting to queue.
  • Parents (and other visitors) will not be invited inside the school building apart from in very exceptional circumstances. We apologise in advance that we may not seem as welcoming as usual but it is for your safety as well as ours.
  • The play trails will not be in use at any time and will be cordoned off. Please do not allow your child to go on these before or after school.

   

  Uniform and Personal Belongings

  • Children should wear as close to their usual school uniform as possible.
  • We urge you to wash their clothes regularly (everyday if possible) at 60 degrees as per government guidance so we accept that this means school uniform will not necessarily be 100% complete every day.
  • Children could use their PE kits to supplement their uniform as these will not be changed into during the school day.
  • We recommend that children wear trainers or plimsolls suitable for active sessions each day and request you not to send children to school in shoes with laces unless they have the capacity to tie these for themselves.
  • Children in Year 6 are permitted to wear their leaver’s hoodies but these will need to be washed regularly.
  • The children will only be permitted to bring absolute essential items into school and these should be carried in a named disposable carrier bag.
  • EVERY CHILD will need to have a named water bottle as we will have no means to provide them with water otherwise.
  • Children may also need their lunch box, a rain coat, a hat, sun cream and possibly hand cream due to the increased amount of handwashing that will be taking place.
  • If your child took home their inhaler or epipen when school closed, please ensure that these are returned on the first day.
  • Unfortunately we will not be able to issue reading or homework books at this time.
  • The advice is that face masks do not need to be worn in school however should staff or pupils feel that they would prefer to wear one, we are fully supportive of this.
  • Staff will of course wear PPE if dealing with a child who develops symptoms in school or for intimate care when appropriate.
  • All children will be provided with their own pack of resources (pens, pencils etc) to use during the school day. They should not bring any pencil cases or other equipment into school.

   

  Lunch and Break Times

  • Children can have their usual choice of school dinners or packed lunch.
  • Herts Catering will be returning as close as possible to their usual menu with red, green and packed lunch choices each day. We will return to school in week beginning 1^st June on week 2 of the menu.
  • Universal and benefits related free school meals will be resumed. All of those who do not fall into these categories will be charged as usual.
  • Lunch and break times will be staggered to reduce the likelihood of children coming into contact with others who are not in their pod.
  • Key Worker children and those in Year 6 will eat in their class bases.
  • Children in Reception and Year 1 will eat in the dining room and hall.
  • Lunch is likely to be late for some children compared to what they are used to. Parents can supply a snack for their child to eat at break time while we await details of the fruit for schools scheme to be resumed.
  • Midday supervisors will be in school to support the cleaning of tables and chairs between pods of children. The adults with each pod will maintain supervision for them throughout the day.

   

  Learning

  • Daily online learning will be continued on a Monday for all year groups, for Year 1 and Reception until the date above that those year groups return to school and for children in Nursery, Years 2, 3, 4 and 5 until such a time that they return to school.
  • Unfortunately we will not be able to set daily online learning tasks on Tuesday to Friday for Reception, Years 1 or 6 once the year group returns to school. We fully respect your choice to keep your child at home and we will be providing a list of possible resources / activities that you might access if you wish to continue to home school your child for now. In addition, we will have staff who will be continuing to monitor the class email accounts each day so that children at home can continue to send examples of work they have completed or their queries in to.
  • The children in school will be having Maths, English and Phonics (for Reception and Y1) taught on a daily basis but teacher marking of the work produced will be limited at this time.
  • The rest of the day will be filled with well-being work, learning about health and hygiene and learning from other aspects of the curriculum with a particular focus on learning outside.
  • The children will not necessarily receive the curriculum they usually would in the summer term of the year group they are currently in as the priority will be on delivering learning opportunities safely while being mindful of the children’s mental health and well-being.
  • We will ensure that sex education is delivered to the children in Year 6 and further details will be sent about this.
  • There will be no whole school events, including assemblies, plays, sports days etc, or school trips taking place for the foreseeable future.

   

  Suspected Cases / Illness

  • CHILDREN, STAFF AND PARENTS MUST STAY AWAY FROM THE SCHOOL SITE AND SELF ISOLATE AT HOME IF THEY, OR ANYONE IN THEIR HOME, HAVE EVEN MILD SYMPTOMS OF CORONAVIRUS (high temperature, persistent cough or loss of taste / smell). We cannot stress how important this is to protect our whole school community.
  • Children who develop any symptoms in school will be immediately isolated and kept in a ventilated room away from all others. You will be called to pick them up immediately and we thank you in advance for ensuring you arrive to collect them promptly.
  • Any child or member of staff who gets symptoms must immediately isolate for 7 days. If a member of their family gets symptoms, the staff member or pupil must isolate for 14 days. Please inform us as quickly as possible if this is the case.
  • Staff, pupils in the year groups in schools and their families will be eligible for testing.
  • If there is any confirmed positive test results, all children and adults who have been in the same pod must self-isolate for 14 days and cannot come into school. Please inform school as quickly as possible of any positive result so we can ensure the pod can be closed.

   

• Re-opening Letter

  Mon 25 May 2020

   

  25 May 2020

   

  Dear Parents / Carers,

   

  I am writing to you today in order to give you as much notice as possible of the decision the leadership team and I have just made to further phase the reopening of Galley Hill. It is now our intention to reopen to children in Year 6 on 2 June, children in Year 1 on 9 June and children in Reception on 16 June. We will continue to be open for the children of key workers every day as we have been throughout.

   

  I want you to know that this is not a decision that we have taken lightly. We have agonised over this decision having carefully studied the scientific research, the government guidance and discussed the matter at length amongst ourselves. We want nothing more than to be fully open again and educating our children face to face but at this time, our absolute priority is the safety and well-being of our pupils, staff and wider community.

   

  We do have a detailed and extensive plan and risk assessment for the reopening of the school, based on the guidance provided but we are trying to implement this while the said guidance is constantly changing. As an example, additional guidance for safely opening for children in the Early Years (Nursery and Reception) was published only yesterday – on a Sunday of a Bank Holiday weekend with only four working days to implement it. We want our children to be safe and feel we can best do this by giving ourselves the time needed to prepare properly. With regards to Early Years, we are also still awaiting confirmation of the ability to test children under 5 for covid-19 as testing and tracing are absolutely pivotal to the safe reopening of schools.

   

  In addition to this, we know from years of experience, that even the most meticulous plans have blips in them when you add children into the equation. We think it is important that we slowly and carefully implement every stage of our plan so we can quickly identify and remedy any potential problem areas and this is why we want to gradually increase the numbers of children on site week by week.

   

  We of course understand that this decision may have an adverse impact on some of you who need to return to work and we will do all we possibly can to support with this. We have added additional capacity to our key worker groups for the intervening period so please do send us an email (admin@galleyhill.herts.sch.uk) if you would like to explore this option further with us.

   

  Online learning will of course be maintained for the children in Years 1 and Reception until the point that they are welcomed back to school.

   

  I really do send my sincere apologies for any inconvenience caused by the decision we have made and hope that you can see that our school community are at the very heart of it.

   

  Take care and stay safe,

   

  Mrs Birch