THE FINAL WEEK OF TERM

Dear Parents,

Over the past few days we have been contacted by many parents who are deeply worried about things going very wrong in the final week of school (14^th – 18^th Dec) and families having their Christmases ruined by self-isolation should school bubbles have to close due to positive cases and their child having to self-isolate. We also have many many families worried because they would like to spend Christmas with some vulnerable family members and are understandably concerned about their children possibly passing the virus with so many young people being asymptomatic.

As a result of this, we are proposing to offer ALL families the option of electing to keep their children home during the final week to minimise these worries.

• Children would still be set Christmas-themed home learning which they would be expected to complete
• Families who receive free school meals who replied to our last questionnaire saying that they would like a food parcel would receive these on Friday
• We will move all Christmas parties to this week so that no children miss out due to their families choosing to learn from home during this week. (Foundation and KS1: Friday 11^th, Years 3&4 and 5&6: Thursday 10^th December)

We appreciate that for some, this will not be an option due to work etc. and some may simply decide that they don’t want to do this. School will of course remain open as usual to any families who cannot, or do not want to, take up this option.

We will be sending out a brief form which can be filled out on your phone to state whether you’d like to choose home-learning or normal school attendance for this final week. Please understand, that if you choose home-learning, you would be committing to this for the week as it would completely defeat the purpose otherwise.

We hope that you appreciate that this idea is just us realising how worried many are and trying to find a possible solution which may make the situation feel even a tiny bit safer.

Kind regards,

Church Vale Primary School