Dear Parents,

I do hope you are all well and keeping safe.

I am contacting you regarding the Government’s plan to open schools to more pupils from 1^st June. As you will be aware, they would like schools to start having nursery, reception, Y1 and Y6 pupils come back.

School leaders have only been issued the same documents that the general public have, so we have no further information to tell you at this point. As you can imagine, staff, Governors and I will need to take time to understand the content of the guidance and begin to put plans in place to ensure whatever we do is in the best interests of our children, parents and staff. I realise that many of you will have questions about your own family circumstances but at this time we are unlikely to be able to answer them until we know more, but I have included the link here to the Government’s guidance for parents and carers which was updated yesterday. I know it will answer some of your questions.

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/closure-of-educational-settings-information-for-parents-and-carers/reopening-schools-and-other-educational-settings-from-1-june

It is still very early to know if schools will indeed be able to put everything into place to ensure all the children in nursery, reception, Y1 and Y6 are able to return on 1^st June but I will continue to keep you informed. Can I please ask that you regularly check the school website https://www.stgeorgesschool.org.uk/ for up-to-date information. The best place to look is click onto Parents’ Area and then onto School News.

I would like to thank you all for showing such kindness and support to our school over the past few weeks. It has been great to see so many families join our weekly live quizzes and send in work and photos to be shared with our school family. Staff genuinely love having a school full of children and we all hope that once it is safe to do so, that we will be able to welcome everyone back.

Yours sincerely,

Mrs Sally Sixsmith

Head Teacher

Hosted by the Mental Health Foundation, Mental Health Awareness Week will take place nationally from 18-24th May 2020. The theme is ‘kindness’ which fits in really well with our school values. We want to celebrate all the wonderful acts of kindness around us, that are so important to our mental health, by asking you all to email in photos of acts of kindness you have seen or are doing, create a picture, write a poem or a pretend newspaper article. Anything you like to celebrate kindness!

Kindness work to be emailed into school by Wednesday 20th May please to admin@stgeorgesschool.org.uk

If you would like to know more, please click on this link which takes you to the Mental Health Foundation’s website.

As I am sure you will have heard this evening, the Government are putting into place for Reception, Year 1 and Year 6 to return to school after half term. As a school, we do not know anymore than that at this moment in time. Please allow us time to be sent further guidance and we will communicate with you as soon as we know more.

Please note that current arrangements still stand where we are only able to have the children of existing key workers and those with a social worker in school. Again, we will let you know as soon as possible if this position changes.

Thank you very much for your understanding.