Dear Parents and Carers,

We are all very pleased to be able to welcome back all of our pupils today. I must say that seeing all the smiling faces coming in this morning was amazing. It has been a long time since we had everyone together, and today we can return to being the wonderful Castle School family that we are.

As I said last week, we will be operating in a similar way to how we did in the autumn term. I attach the protocols again just to ensure that everyone has a copy.

As you will be aware, staff are now carrying out regular twice-weekly testing in line with government guidance. The purpose of this testing is to try and catch asymptomatic cases that would normally go undetected. As a result, more cases may be identified in schools and, as such, we may experience more closures in the short term. This will be the same with schools up and down the country. If any member of staff receives a positive lateral flow test then we will need to close the Bubble that they are in, at least until they have got a further confirmatory PCR test. 

I know that this disruption will be frustrating, but we will be acting following the advice and guidance of both the government and Public Health England. As I have said on many occasions, the safety all our pupils and staff remains the highest priority.

I hope that we will not need to have any Bubble closures, but I wanted you to be aware of the possibility as we go forward.

In terms of making our school as safe as possible, we continue to have a raft of safety measures in place in school. These have served us well over the past few months and have ensured that we have had very few cases. These measures are still in place and we have also enhanced our cleaning regime, increased ventilation (where appropriate and safe to do so) and, as mentioned above, enabled our staff to have twice-weekly testing.

We hope that as we head through the next few weeks, things start to return to normal. Thank you again for your support and hard work over the recent months. 

 

Best wishes,

 

Jon Hewitt

Headteacher

The Castle School