Tibberton Community Primary School and Early Years

Orchard Rise

Tibberton

Gloucester

GL19 3AQ

Tel: (01452) 790469

admin@tibberton.gloucs.sch.uk

www.tibberton.gloucs.sch.uk

Headteacher Friday March 13th 2020

Amanda Horniman

RE CORONAVIRUS

Dear Parents,

In the light of recent developments, I thought I would let you know of the plans we have in place to reduce the spread of disease at school and nursery.

Presently children are washing their hands before eating and at regular times during the day – they have all been taught how to wash their hands thoroughly for 20 seconds with soap and water and to dry them well too. We have had several presentations on the importance of hygiene in the last week.

A risk assessment plan has been drawn up and this is attached for your information. We are currently well stocked on tissues, soap and paper towels, but hand sanitiser is hard to come by, so staff and children have been washing hands more regularly during the day and especially before food. Mrs Turner and Mr Prictor our cleaner and caretaker are taking extra precautions with cleaning especially in high touch areas.

The government and Department of health have not closed schools or nurseries in the UK at the moment – but this may well happen in the near future. If this is the case staff will upload work to do at home onto the school website so that parents can continue their children’s learning at home. This will involve continuing with vital number and spelling/phonics skills and a creative project. Staff will ‘catch’ children up with numeracy and literacy when they return to school/nursery.

At the time of writing the Government has just moved the national plan to ‘delay’ and that means that anyone with even a mild cough or higher temperature needs to self-isolate for at least seven days. If your child is at all unwell please do not send them to school or nursery for seven days. This isolation however may have implications for staff (teaching, admin, catering or cleaning) – if they are mildly ill they will also need to stay at home and whilst we will endeavour to keep the school and nursery running as long as possible – if there are staff shortages we may well need to close classes/year groups or shut the school to ensure children’s safety. We will also send home any children that staff feel have colds, coughs or developing symptoms – please ensure that we have up to date contact numbers.

It may be likely that we cancel some events at school and nursery – in order to keep socialisation to a minimum. If school meals can no longer be delivered, then children will need to bring packed lunches to school.

If you feel your chid has a pre-existing condition such as asthma and you are worried about sending them to school or nursery – please do let us know and keep them at home.

I will continue to keep you updated – please do keep in touch and let us know if you have any questions. If you have any health related worries please do use NHS 111 online. https://111.nhs.uk/covid-19

I appreciate this a very worrying time for all of us and hope that we can all support each other in these difficult and unprecedented times.

Kind regards

Amanda Horniman