Newsflash – Friday 09th October 2020

9 Oct 2020

Message from Mr Marshall

COVID 19 Restrictions

It is difficult to avoid the news at the moment where we hear of ever-increasing rates of COVID 19 cases throughout the country and particularly in the large urban conurbations of the North of England. The number of infections across Tameside is increasing and we have seen increasing disruption to our lives as a result. Given the loss of learning that our students have already lost to this virus we must, as a community, do all we can to slow its spread so that we can keep our children in school and learning. Their health and successful futures will always be our most important consideration, and today I have sent every family a letter explaining what we can all do to safeguard ourselves and families at this time.

We were informed on Monday of a confirmed case of COVID 19 in one of our pupils and we send our best wishes to them and their family for a very speedy recovery. With their help, and using Public Health England advice on contact tracing, we were quickly able to establish all potential contacts of the student during the 48 hours prior to the commencement of symptoms. Whilst our systems, seating plans, lunchtime arrangements and checking mechanisms meant that we did not have to send the whole bubble home, we did unfortunately have to ask a significant number of students to self-isolate for 14 days from this date. May I pass on my thanks to the parents of these students for your understanding and support in the circumstances? Having missed such a lot of school during lockdown I can imagine the additional concern and frustration this will inevitably have caused. I hope that your child is able to access their learning online and look forward to welcoming them back on Wednesday, 14th October. Please do not hesitate to contact us should you have any issues.

Of course, like many other schools, we have more students absent from school at this time as they have been asked to self-isolate due to symptoms or because a family member has symptoms or has tested positive. In terms of our registers, such absences are coded X which counts as ‘authorised absence’. Students who are coded in this way will receive work to complete from their teachers on Microsoft Teams. If your child is in this situation but have symptoms that make them too ill to work at home, please contact our attendance team who will notify the appropriate staff. If we do not hear from you, we will assume that your child is able to complete work at home.