News

Dear Parent/Carer,
Further to my update yesterday, I wanted to send you more information about school. School remains a calm, positive and productive place – I am so proud of our pupils for the manner in which they are conducting themselves.

What is school doing right now?
Right now the following is happening in Ravensfield:

• Our Senior Leadership Team and Chair of Governors are following the latest government guidelines to enable us to make the right decisions as the situation develops
• We are continuing to have strict hand washing regimes and using anti-bacteria hand gel regularly throughout the school day and making sure our children was their hands thoroughly.
• We have now postponed all our assemblies, educational visits and staff training events so we can concentrate on keeping classes open and children safe.
• We are liaising with other agencies to try and help the most vulnerable children and families in our community
• We are working on setting up our website for remote learning.

What might happen next?
The Government is planning for a range of future scenarios, one of which includes the possibility of a temporary school closure, but to date the Government’s preference is to keep schools open. 
As you will be aware, schools in a number of countries have closed for many weeks with no prior notice given. Should this happen to us, please note the following:

Communication

We have remote access to our website and text messaging service so we should be able to contact you with updates. Please do check our website regularly and make sure we have an up to date mobile phone number for you. Thanks you

Student learning

Whilst there is no substitute for being in a classroom with a teacher, we will set work for all our children via our school website. This can be downloaded by parents and returned via email to teachers. Details about how this will work will follow as we are still in the stages of making sure this is set up securely. 

Educational Visits
Educational visits are essential part of our curriculum but these have been postponed for the moment.

Sports clubs and assemblies
These have also been cancelled for the time being and apologies for the inconvenience caused. Photographs of certificates will continue to be put on our school website to celebrate children's achievement. 

Parents Evening.
Will now be done as telephone appointments which will take place before the Easter holidays for children in Years 6, 2 and Reception and after Easter for all other year groups. Again our apologies for the inconvenience. 

Staff Absence

It is possible that for a period of time, the school will be open but a higher than normal number of staff may be absent. Whilst the Government are “relaxing” the law regarding maximum class size, in reality this has no practical meaning for our school as rooms have a maximum capacity. If high staff absence does become the case, we will do everything we can to remain open, but we will priorities our exam classes and we reserve the right to open partially for other year groups at short notice. However, this would be a last resort and we will try to communicate with parents as early as possible. Work will be provided via our website.

Pupil Absence due to self-isolation

If pupils are absent from school but are not unwell, they should complete any homework already set by the teachers and access the work on the school website. 

This is a fast-moving situation and at the time of writing this letter, the risk level is deemed low to moderate, although for parents/guardians wishing to keep up to date with the latest situation, the following links may be helpful:

Updates on COVID-19: https://www.gov.uk/coronavirus

Guidance for schools: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/guidance-to-educationalsettings-

about-covid-19

Karen Leyland

Head Teacher