Dear Parents and carers,
Happy New Year and I hope you were able to enjoy the Christmas holidays. It has been lovely to welcome the children back to school and I have been very impressed with the calm and focussed return they have made this week. We have had assemblies with all classes this week to welcome pupils back and to provide them with reminders and updates.
As with all schools and the wider community, we continue to see cases of Covid-19 amongst staff and pupils. Fortunately, we have been able to cover staff absences so far without significant disruption to classes and their learning.
We are following the latest government guidance and have measures in place to reduce the risk of transmission in school, including:
Letters to parents when we see a cluster of cases in classes
Temporarily pausing on some indoor mixing including year group assemblies, lunchtime clubs and after school clubs
Monitoring ventilation in classrooms
Staff wearing masks in communal areas
We would ask parents and carers to support us by:
Ensuring you follow the latest self-isolation guidance if your child is symptomatic with Covid-19: When to self-isolate and what to do - Coronavirus (COVID-19) - NHS (www.nhs.uk)
Following the Self-isolation rules. These have recently changed and the latest guidance can be found here: How long to self-isolate - Coronavirus (COVID-19) - NHS (www.nhs.uk)
If your child is a close contact of a confirmed case of Covid-19 please ensure they test regularly with an LFD test.
If your child is self-isolating and well enough to complete home learning then please do let us know so that we can support with this. We are also able to provide laptops so that they can access this online.
Further guidance, including supporting children’s mental health and well-being, can be found on our website here: COVID-19 KEY INFO. | IJS (ilfracombe-jun.devon.sch.uk)
Please do not hesitate to contact us if you have any questions or concerns about any aspect of this.
In other news, this term will see a whole school focus on Online Safety and we will be providing regular updates on our work with the children along with information to support parents and carers in keeping their children safe online. Please could I ask all parents to familiarise themselves with the useful information that can be found here: Online Safety for Children - Tips & Guides | NSPCC More updates will follow next week.
Thank you once again for your ongoing support.
Kind regards,
Mr Le Bredonchel
Head Teacher
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