The re-opening of schools will be a welcome relief to many of you whilst still causing some concern and anxiety.
Thank you very much for your patience and support over the last 12 weeks! You will have received recent correspondence from the Director of Education reassuring you with regard to the general measures that schools are taking to ensure the safety of your child. However, we are aware that you will require further information from the school with regard to practice and procedures that we will adopt as the ‘new norm’ from Monday 29th June. To help you make an informed decision as to whether you feel it is safe to return your child to school, we have attached an outline of our Health and Safety processes.
Please remember that parents have the option to send their child to school at this time – if you do not choose to send your child to school during this period, neither you nor child will be penalised and you will continue to receive support to continue to work at home. However, should you choose to send you child to school after reading this guidance, then please make sure that you complete the online form that can be found by clicking here.
It is essential that this form is completed as we cannot allow pupils on site without explicit parental permission to ensure the health and safety of our school community.
Maesteg School staff, pupils and parents will therefore be expected to follow certain procedures that you can read here.
You can read the latest letter (22.06.20) from BCBC’s Corporate Director of Education and Family Support, Mr Lindsay Harvey regarding emergency childcare and ‘Check in, Catch up and Prepare’ arrangements here.
The Covid 19 Return to School Risk Assessment guide can be found here.
We sincerely hope that this guidance has gone some to way to reassure you and alleviate some of the concerns you may have had about your child returning to school. To further support your discussions with your child about the ‘new norm’ when they return to school, the video below provides a virtual tour of our facilities and processes. In the meantime, please do not hesitate to contact a member of our staff if you have further queries or questions.
We hope you find this short video informative and reassuring. School will be a very different experience for our pupils on their return over the next three weeks. The final part of the video provides a helpful summary of those things we want our pupils to be most aware of when they return. These are outlined below, together with some other important information:
- School Transport: Pupils need to be at their usual bus stop by 8.30 am for a 9.00 am start and 9.30 am for a 10.00 am start. Being on time for your bus is essential.
- Should pupils use the back steps into school (those from the Drop-Off point on Ffordd Dysgu), they should be mindful of any contact they have with the handrail.
- As soon as they arrive at school, pupils should move immediately to the entrance that has been allocated to their House.
- After the registration process, pupils will be asked to wash their hands. This will be repeated at all key times in the day in line with Public Health Wales guidance.
- Pupils should follow the one-way system in the school, which stretches across each corridor. This is clearly signposted.
- Pupils will be allocated to a classroom with a maximum of eight pupils and will be given everything they require for their learning experiences. All resources which are then necessary for further work at home will be shared by the teacher through email and/or ‘Showmyhomework’. Parents may also want to download the ‘Showmyhomework’ app as this will alert them to any work set for their child.
- The purpose of the sessions are to allow the pupils to ‘Check in’ (this will involve activities around health and wellbeing), ‘Catch up’ (this will involve further supporting the pupils in their learning, especially in terms of learning from home) and ‘Prepare’ (this will involve pupils developing their awareness and understanding of what school may look like in September).
- Pupils will remain with the other seven pupils for the day, for their breaks and for their lunch
- Pupils are permitted to have their mobile phones on them at this time but should use them in the school grounds only when given permission by the supervising teachers
- Pupils are not permitted to wear school uniform
- Please could parents ensure that there are funds on their child’s account should the intention be to buy food in school. Staff in the canteen will be using pupils’ names (rather than the usual ‘thumb-print’) as the mode of payment.
You can read a copy of the questions pupils will be asked upon arrival to school here.
We would also like to give a big thank you to Isobel Hocking-Watts and Mr Shaw for pulling together this video in less than 24 hours. The professionalism and positivity with which Isobel approached the task was a credit to her and we wish her all the best as she embarks on the next exciting stage of her life. Her final comments so succinctly sum up all we can ask of each our pupils at this time:
‘Never before as a community have we needed to me more motivated to strive. We know that each and every one of you will continue to meet the challenges and do the very best you can’.