Dear Parents and Carers,

 

As the regulations are changing daily I wanted to summarise where we are at the moment.  Please keep checking the link below for information:

 

https://www.gov.uk/government/topical-events/coronavirus-covid-19-uk-government-response

 

Children’s absence

If your child or anyone in your household has any of the below symptoms the whole family (all brothers and sisters) must stay at home, not come to school for 14 days.

• A cough
• A high temperature (37.8)
• Shortness of breath

 

Those children who were absent on Monday 16th March must now comply with this 14-day absence requirement. Any child sent to school who has had any of these symptoms or presents with these symptoms will immediately be sent home.

If you are following the self-isolation fourteen days guidance, please contact the office to inform them if you child’s/children’s absence on day one (this can be done on absence@marshgate.richmond.sch.uk – please put your child’s full name and class in the message).  You do not need to contact the school on a daily basis.  If, after the fourteen days, your child is still not well enough to be in school, we ask that you contact us with an update.  Please continue to inform us of any new developments with your child and family.

These absences will be authorised and coded with a Y which means “Unable to attend school due to exceptional circumstances”.

 

Staff absence

All of the above applies to school staff as well.  We have a number of staff off at the moment due to this. None of these have been diagnosed with the Covid-19 virus but have family members with coughs etc. Therefore, they will be off for 14 days. At the moment we are able to cover all classes with our internal experienced staff. Should staff absence increase, it may be necessary to begin partial closure of the school.

 

Home learning

Teachers are working full time / all day teaching classes so therefore at the moment it is not feasible to provide extra and additional work for multiple individual pupils. Please be assured if / when schools close we will provide work for whole classes.

 

In the meantime, if your child is at home use the curriculum summary (previously sent and on the website) and use your child’s online access to the computer learning programmes they already have for homework.  As we always say reading is the key to all learning so enjoy lots of lovely extended reading sessions.

We are trying to keep everything very calm for the children at school and would ask you to do the same at home.  We do not want any child worrying.

 

Updates on Coronavirus developments will be emailed regularly and also put on the Latest News section on the Marshgate website.  This can be translated into over one hundred languages by using the translate button at the top right hand side of the website, please do take a look.

 

Thank you for your wonderful co-operation and all the lovely emails of support.  Keep well.

 

Ms Jackson

Head Teacher