Places for key worker families and vulnerable children

Noon today was the deadline for key worker families who are not currently accessing our school to get in touch to request a place.  Thank you to those parents/carers who got in touch and we have now sent two text messages out: the first is confirmation for families accessing school regularly since 23rd March that their child's place will continue; the second is a message to those new parents/carers who will begin with a place from Tuesday 2nd June onwards.  We have also messaged all our parents/carers to explain that only key worker families and vulnerable children notified today are to attend school at this time.

Why have we done this?

You will be aware of the government's proposals for the phased reopening of schools and how this involves certain year groups.  In order for us to be able to do this, we first of all need to establish our offer for vulnerable children and key worker families as there will be a limit to the number of children we can accept back to school safely.

Why is there a limit to the number of children who come to school?

School will reopen in a very different format due to the current national pandemic.  Safety measures such as social distancing mean that the numbers of children who can use a classroom together is greatly reduced.  In addition, staff may be medically vulnerable and so cannot work in school or in the classroom.  This means our staffing levels are also reduced.  All this means that we need to be cautious over our pupil numbers to ensure they are safely looked after.

When will school open to specific year groups?

We are currently working with Knowsley Council to assess the safe opening of our school.  This involves risk assessments and plans that take into account the large amount of government guidance.  These plans must be consulted upon with staff, governors, Trade Unions and Knowsley Council before we can move to opening our school further.

Please be assured that while these measures are frustrating – we would love to be running school as normal – they have to be addressed.  Once we have had confirmation from Knowsley Council that our plans are approved we will be in touch with details of how school will reopen.  At present, you can get an understanding of our proposed measures by reading this previous News Flash https://www.plantationprimary.com/news/important-message-school-reopening-measures/53611.

Will Home Learning continue?

Staff will continue to keep our Home Learning up to date and this will be on the Class blog pages for the ‘A’ class (e.g. Class 3A for Year 3) in each year group as it has since school partially closed in March.  We will work with resources from Oak National Academy, BBC Bitesize and White Rose Maths plus additional resources to supplement these main sites.  We would also encourage all children to read regularly both for pleasure by themselves and with an adult.

We are also aware that the government is proposing changes to the key worker list.  As a school we do not receive any such updates before the general public.  Our information comes at the same time you get it.  When this new guidance is published we will work as quickly as possible to tackle any changing need it brings to places at school for the children.

Thank you to everyone in our school community for your work in supporting Plantation.  Staff are working tremendously hard to support children in school and at home.  Governors give of their time freely to attend online virtual meetings and respond to urgent emails to agree measures for school.  Parents and carers are supporting our children at home with Home Learning.  Thank you for all doing your part and we look forward to the day when school can safely reopen for everyone!