COVID-19 UPDATE ON CRITICAL WORKERS - 10.1.21

Sunday 10th January 2021

Dear Parents and Carers,

Firstly, thank you for your patience and support during these unprecedented times. It really does make such a difference when we have the support of our families and community.

As you are fully aware, we are now in another national lockdown but it is very different to the first. Our numbers of critical workers have significantly increased. It is still only critical workers and vulnerable children who are entitled to come to school. However, due to the initial government guidance on this and by expanding the critical worker list, our numbers of critical workers have significantly increased from the last time and this has meant that we cannot safely run this provision in school without having all staff in the school.

Nationally, schools have been reporting that the numbers coming into school have not been manageable to enable them to keep the children and staff safe as well as deliver high quality remote learning. The government has responded to this and on Friday updated their guidance to support schools to manage the increased demand. Please see the updated guidance below.

Critical workers

Parents whose work is critical to the coronavirus (COVID-19) and EU transition response include those who work in health and social care and in other key sectors outlined in the following sections. Children with at least one parent or carer who is a critical worker can go to school or college if required, but parents and carers should keep their children at home if they can.

(For the full document please click on the link https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/coronavirus-covid-19-maintaining-educational-provision/guidance-for-schools-colleges-and-local-authorities-on-maintaining-educational-provision)

I must emphasise the highlighted section in the government guidance above. Places in school must only be used as a last resort when there is no other alternative safe place for your child to be during the day, and your child being in school enables you to carry out critical frontline work. School places must not be used to enable a parent to work from home more easily - no matter what their role, but can be used by a parent who is at home sleeping to enable them to undertake critical frontline work at night.

During the current lockdown, the law permits families to form a childcare bubble with one other household and this may help families who need support with caring for children at home. Schools have been closed to reduce the transmission of the coronavirus in our community. The new variant of the virus transmits easily between children who are in close contact with each other. If all of our children who have one parent who is a key worker came into school combined with all of our more vulnerable children we would have virtually full attendance of our school population. This would be unsafe for the children in school, their families at home, for our staff but also it would jeopardise provision for the many frontline NHS staff who are using the school places to enable them to care for patients.

We will be contacting critical worker parents next week to ensure they are only using this provision under the updated guidelines, to ensure we can provide this essential provision for the families who absolutely need it but also enable us to deliver high quality remote learning.

The safety of our children, families and staff is always our highest priority. Please support the school to ensure we can keep our numbers coming into school to an absolute minimum to enable us to keep our whole community safe.

Thank you for your continued cooperation,

Yours faithfully,