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Keep up to date with all the news happening in school at the moment.
SCHOOL CLOSURE and COMMUNICATION UPDATE
It has been a long week since we have not been open to all children and we have missed seeing them and all our families. From Monday 30th March 2020 the school will be closed to all children as alternative arrangements have been made by the few key worker parents, who we were supporting with care last week.
This week teachers have been busy updating the school website and signposting children and families to various websites that can be accessed on line to help your child continue to keep up with their learning for part of the day. (You must take a look at Year 3's Class page week 2. We have a special super hero teaching us!)
Any updates we have about any changes to the current situation we will put on our website. If you are not following our school Twitter account, please follow as we will also be putting updates and messages on this. (@OurLadyStarSea.) Also most of your child’s teachers have also got their class twitter account, so look out for them and follow them directly. As you know we have our Teachers2parents text service that we use to text short messages to you and you can reply through. However, this service only allows a very short text and often we need to say more.
We have recently launched our updated Parent Apps service which the majority of our parents are active within. This app gives us the facility to upload newsletters and longer messages to you. So please download the app and look for our school name. Then we can invite you to join.
With all of these ways of communication, please be aware that the school is closed and office staff, senior leaders and teachers will not be monitoring texts and messages every day. Please be patient with us and be assured that we will be in touch as soon as we can.
Please continue to look after your selves, washing your hands and ensuring your child does too; staying safe and keeping a social distance if you have to go out.
We look forward to seeing everyone on the other side of these dark days.
Yours Sincerely
Mrs J. Jenkins
To all Parents/Carers,
Firstly, I would like to thank you for your patience and support through these difficult times. As all of you will be aware by now, schools across England will close tonight Friday 20th March for the foreseeable future.
School will remain open for a certain number of pupils as outlined by the Government and are being asked to continue to provide care for a limited number of children – children who are vulnerable and children whose parents are critical to the Covid-19 response and cannot be safely cared for at home. Vulnerable children include children who are supported by social care, those with safeguarding and welfare needs, including child in need plans, on child protection plans, ‘looked after’ children, young carers, disabled children and those with Education, Health and Care |Plans (EHCP). School will contact these families before the close of day today.
The Government has asked parents to keep their children at home, wherever possible, and asked schools to remain open only for those children who absolutely need to attend. The fewer children making the journey to school and the fewer children in educational settings, the lower the risk that the virus can spread and infect vulnerable individuals in wider society.
The key message is if you can keep your child at home from Monday then please do so. If you cannot and you know you are needed in the front-line to help others and fight this disease, then please read the criteria attached and use the school text service to contact us.
We know this will put pressure and strain on lots of other families. We know that school closure will have effects on pupils learning and staff have prepared packs of work for your child to take home, or they can be collected from the office. In the packs are a number of on-line learning sites that the children can access. These should also be outlined on the class pages on our website.
Parents should also do everything they can to ensure children are not mixing socially in a way which can continue to spread the virus. They should observe the same social distancing principles as adults.
If your child is entitled to free school meals, you should receive vouchers in the future, however until then; we will try to provide sandwich bags for your children that can be collected at the school gate. We will send a text asking if you require a free school meal for this week or not.
Please reply as soon as possible so we can have an idea of numbers.
All assessments have been cancelled for this year, the hard work of our children will not be lost and though everyone is unsure of how long school’s will be closed for educational purposes, we will keep in touch with updates via our text messaging service, our Twitter account @OurLadyStarSea and on our website.
For the time being, what I would like to say is that this is a testing time for all of us. As a school, our role does not end at the gates. Please be assured that if you need support, we will do our utmost to try to support all our families as best as we practically can.
Again, please continue to ensure our children are not mixing socially in a way that can spread the virus, keep social distancing as adults and look after each other.
Please keep safe.
Yours sincerely,
J. Jenkins
Mrs J Jenkins
Headteacher
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KEY WORKERS
Parents whose work is critical to the COVID-19 response include those who work in health and social care and in other key sectors outlined below.
Many parents working in these sectors may be able to ensure their child is kept at home and every child who can be safely cared for at home should be.
If your work is critical to the COVID-19 response, or you work in one of the critical sectors listed below, and you cannot keep your child safe at home then your children will be prioritised for education provision:
Health & Social Care
This includes but is not limited to doctors, nurses, midwives, paramedics, social workers, care workers, and other frontline health and social care staff including volunteers; the support and specialist staff required to maintain the UK’s health and social care sector; those working as part of the health and social care supply chain, including producers and distributors of medicines and medical and personal protective equipment.
Education and Childcare
This includes nursery and teaching staff, social workers and those specialist education professionals who must remain active during the COVID-19 response to deliver this approach.
Key Public Services
This includes those essential to the running of the justice system, religious staff, charities and workers delivering key frontline services, those responsible for the management of the deceased, and journalists and broadcasters who are providing public service broadcasting.
Local and National Government
This only includes those administrative occupations essential to the effective delivery of the COVI|D-19 response or delivering essential public services such as the payment of benefits, including in government agencies and arms length bodies.
Food and Other Necessary Goods
This includes those involved in food production, processing, distribution, sale and delivery as well as those essential to the provision of other key goods (for example hygienic and veterinary medicines).
Public Safety and National Security
This includes police and support staff, Ministry of Defence civilians, contractor and armed forces personnel (those critical to the delivery of key defence and national security outputs and essential to the response to the COVID-19 pandemic), fire and rescue services employees (including support staff), National Crime Agency staff, those maintaining border security roles, including those overseas.
Transport
This includes those who will keep the air, water, road and rail passenger and freight transport modes operating during the COVID-19 response, including those working on transport systems through which supply chains pass.
Utilities, Communication and Financial Services
This includes staff needed for essential financial services provision (including but not limited to workers in banks, building societies and financial market infrastructure), the oil, gas, electricity and water sectors (including sewerage), information technology and data infrastructure sector and primary industry supplies to continue during the COVID-19 response, as well as key staff working in the civil nuclear, chemicals, telecommunications (including but not limited to network operations, field engineering, call centre staff, IT and data infrastructure, 999 and 111 critical services), postal services and delivery, payments providers and waste disposal sectors.
Please remember only to use the school if your child has to attend if they can stay at home then please do so.
13th March 2020
Dear Parents/Carers,
As you are probably aware, the government’s guidance on the coronavirus has changed from the ‘contain’ phase to one of delaying the spread of the virus. We’re getting in touch to let you know what we are doing in light of this, and what we expect from you as parents and carers, to help make sure our school community keeps safe and calm.
We would like to reassure you that at Our Lady Star of the Sea School we are taking all of the necessary steps to protect our community and are continuing to follow official guidance from the Government and Sefton Local Authority.
What’s the current situation?
What we’re doing to protect and support pupils and staff
What we need you to do
What happens if the school has to close?
We’ll only close if we’re either officially advised to do so by Public Health England or we don’t have enough staff to run the school.
In either case:
Please keep in mind that we’re only sending out this information to help the school community prepare. There are currently no plans to close.
If you have any questions
Please consult the:
It is a tricky time and we know you’re worried about the impact this might have on our community. It’s important we keep each other safe and talk about these events to help with any anxiety.
Thank you for your continued support.
Yours Sincerely,
J.Jenkins
Mrs J. Jenkins