Academy Reopening

Dear Parents,

Our Senior Leadership Team, alongside Cabot Learning Federation (CLF) colleagues, have now looked at how Haywood Village Academy will be able to increase the numbers of pupils attending school, in line with the government’s intention to welcome pupils in Nursery/Pre-school, Reception and Year 1, whilst continuing to accommodate the children of key/critical workers and vulnerable pupils.

Our key priority is the health and safety of pupils and staff. Over the past week, we have carried out detailed risk assessments of our site, including checking safe physical capacity and adhering to the principles of social distancing; these assessments will continue to be reviewed on a regular basis.

I would like to thank all families for completing the recent survey clarifying those that are key/critical workers and the survey to families with children in Pre-school, Reception and Year 1. Please be aware that due to the high number of key/critical workers that we will now be accommodating, as well as the reduced capacity we have on site, we cannot accommodate every child who has requested to return to school, and this includes many Pre-school, Reception and Year 1 pupils.

We have allocated school places based on the government’s priority criteria: Children with Educational Health Care Plans (EHCPs), children with safeguarding plans and children of critical/key workers or children otherwise deemed ‘vulnerable’. Presently, we have filled up the available spaces in school with children in these categories. We will be sending a text message to those families notifying them if their child has a school place on Tuesday 26th May. We are not reopening the school to other Pre-school, Reception or Year 1 children, unless they are within these categories and you receive a text message confirming this place.

In a separate letter, we will detail the arrangements for school, as well as detail how school will run throughout the day. This will be sent on Friday 28th May. However some detail at this stage will, understandably, be helpful:

• Monday 1st June – Wednesday 3rd June: Where possible, all families should seek safe alternative provision for their children and this includes all key/critical worker To accommodate a significant increase in pupil numbers, we need to train all staff and prepare the school site for wider reopening. It will be necessary to book a place via Tucasi and these places will be very limited. It is expected that only children who have currently been accessing the Hub on site to date should book in for the provision on these days.
• Thursday 4th June: If you receive a text on Tuesday 26th May, we expect you to use your school place from this day
• You can begin to arrive at school from 8:45am to 9:15am and school will end at 3:00pm – 3:30pm.
• We will not be running the Breakfast Club or Parachutes After School Child Care as we do not have additional staff and we are adhering to the groups/‘bubbles’ of children, whereby children do not mix from different groups/‘bubbles’. However, for exceptional circumstances, such as NHS patient care staff, I will consider requests and review these on a case by case
• Every Wednesday will be closed to all but essential key/critical worker places and those children that the Government would include in their vulnerable children category – namely those with an Education Health Care Plan (EHCP) or involvement with Social Care. Similarly, to 1st – 3rd June, we would appreciate co-operation from families in seeking safe alternative provision for their children on Wednesdays every week.

This is to allow the learning space to undergo an enhanced clean, for leadership and teaching teams to review the dynamic risk assessment and to allow time for planning and preparation of learning on-site and the distance learning provision for the majority of our pupils, who are still currently learning from home.

For all children who will not be returning to school, please be assured that our Distance Learning, via the year group blogs Distance Learning offer, will continue to be in place from 1st June, with children in school and home expected to participate in the same opportunities.

Please note that all of the above information is subject to change following the Government update on the reopening of schools on Thursday 28th May.

If you have further questions regarding the information we have sent, please email into the school email account on [email protected]

Yours faithfully

Craig Jones
Principal