Urgent Letter to Parents    

                                                                                                          

Sunday 3^rd January

 

Dear Parents,

 

It is with regret that I am writing to inform you of changes to school opening on Tuesday 5^th January. Although this is short notice, we are letting you know as soon as we have been able to. You will probably be aware through media coverage that there has been much discussion around the safety of reopening primary schools.

 

The scientific evidence suggests that the infection rate in children is rising. In Birmingham cases among five-to-nine year olds has risen from 93 per 100,000 on 7^th December to 174 per 100,000 on 27^th December. The most recent advice from SAGE is that schools should not open in January mother than for children of key workers and vulnerable children. This is because the scientific advice is that it is not safe for schools to open. There are new variants of Covid-19 that are highly infectious and infection rates have increased significantly since schools closed.

 

Based on the above, teacher unions do not believe that it is safe for teachers to return to full classes. This advice means that Woodgate Primary School is not able to open to all pupils from Tuesday 5^th January until further notice. Remote learning will happen every day through the J2E platform. All pupils have a login for this. It is expected that ALL children will complete the work and staff will be following this up regularly. Staff will feedback to work directly on the J2E platform and may make contact by phone to give support.  If you are unable to access this online learning you must contact your child’s teacher for a paper copy of the week’s work. If you need to contact your child’s teacher, all staff email addresses are on the school website on Class Pages.

 

If your child is eligible for free school meals and you wish school to provide a packed lunch, please contact the office to arrange this.

 

School will remain open for children with Educational Health Care Plan, children of key workers and those children considered vulnerable.

 

If you are a key worker and wish for your child to attend school you must email school on enquiry@woodgate.bham.sch.uk providing your child’s name, class, your job role and the name of your employer before midday Monday 4^th January. This will allow us to prepare for opening on Tuesday 5^th January.

 

If we consider your child to be vulnerable and, therefore, would like them to attend school we will contact you on Monday 4^th January. If you feel that your child is vulnerable, please contact school on enquiry@woodgate.bham.sch.uk stating your child’s name, class and the reason. Please do not send your child to school until we have got in contact to discuss the situation.

 

If your child is attending school – the same start and finish times apply, and entry and exit points as before Christmas. It is crucial that your child arrives to school on time. Breakfast club is available as usual.

 

Please do not hesitate to contact school if you have any queries. We appreciate that this situation will cause disruption and inconvenience and hope that it is not too long before it is deemed safe to welcome all children back to school.

 

Yours sincerely,

 

D. Colley

Head Teacher