Important Letter from Mrs Richards – Social Distancing

Mar 10, 2021

Dear Parent and Carers,

Thank you so much for making the return to our school site of all families a positive and safe experience for everyone. Myself and the staff very much appreciate everyone’s willingness to wear masks and keep themselves and their children at a distance from other families. It has been a delight to see all the children back and so happy to be here!

There is however one issue which is causing a huge amount of anxiety and distress both to the staff and some parents. The park after school on both days so far this week (and the park in Calvert Green at the weekend) has been packed with children and parents, mixing up year groups and very much not social distancing. This is currently breaking the law. The national lockdown is NOT over and THE RULES APPLY TO PRIMARY CHILDREN TOO! Please read and follow the following statements about what is and isn’t permitted at the current time until at least 29 March.

• Parks are open and families are allowed to visit them for exercise or play.

• You are allowed to meet with only one other person for exercise or play (therefore a child and their parent, being two people, is not allowed!) It is not until 29 March that 6 people or two households will be able to meet outdoors.

• If you have formed a childcare bubble or support bubble with another family, then you can go to the park together but must not have any contact within 2 metres of any other people – children or adults. Please also be aware that should any of you show any symptoms of Covid, everyone in the whole childcare/support bubble now has to isolate. You may therefore want to minimise the people in your bubbles to avoid this kind of inconvenience.

• You may not agree but on the evidence we have seen, no primary age child (including Year 6) can be expected to go to the park unsupervised and keep an appropriate distance from everyone except the one child they’re with; the temptation is too great. Please do not assume your children will be socially distant because you’ve told them to.

In school we are working even harder than before to keep year group bubbles separate and ensure the staff keep at least a 2 metre distance from other adults and/or wear masks, particularly those outside their year group bubbles. All of these efforts feel like a complete waste of time, along with the sacrifices people are making in their personal lives in not seeing their friends and families, if families on leaving school go straight to the park and mix in the ways we have witnessed over the last two days. I’m sure that on a day like today when the weather is not so good, this will not be such an issue but there are likely to be more and more nice days soon and I am pleading with you to keep to the rules for the safety of our whole community. Covid has not gone away completely and I am aware of at least one person in the village (not associated with school) who has the virus currently.

Again, thank you for every element of the restrictions and our school measures that you are following as it is only by everyone doing so that we will be able to keep the virus at bay. We know this is not easy, particularly for the children, but we at school are truly grateful for every personal sacrifice you are making which keeps us all that little bit safer. I know I am not talking to everyone and I’m sorry if you have read to the end of this message knowing that you have not been using the park at all; unfortunately there have been too many families breaking the rules for me to be able to approach them individually, making a more ‘blanket approach’ necessary.

Yours sincerely

Christine Richards

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