Thursday 19th March, 2020

Dear Parents/carers,

Re: Coronavirus update – school closure to most pupils

Following on from my last update, I’m now writing to let you know that we have now been instructed to close the school to almost all children from 3:20 on Friday 20th March until further notice.

As advised by the government, we will do all we can to stay open for the children of key workers (e.g. NHS staff, police, others in frontline services), children with an Education Health Care Plan (EHCP) and those children with an allocated Social Worker.

We are waiting for the government to publish more information on what this means, but it would help us in the meantime if you could let us know if you think your child may fall into one of these categories. Please phone or email the school office by 12:00 noon on Friday 20th March at the latest so we can make relevant plans. We’ll be in touch again as soon as we are sure who this does apply to. Please note that we will ask you to provide evidence of your role as a key worker ie. ID Badge / Wage Slip etc.

All other children will need to stay at home, so we ask that you do not send your child into school from Monday onwards.

Please note that this is a national closure – as you may have heard in the news – so while it is a challenging situation, we are not alone. We’ll re-open the school fully as soon as we can and will let you know when this is by text message and via our school website.

What we’ll continue doing while your child is at home:

Your child’s learning is of course important to us, so we’ll continue to help your child to learn. Activities are available from our school website www.tgjs.org.uk by selecting ‘Children / Homeworking Packs, clicking the link and entering the password, ‘homeworking’. If you require a printed pack please inform the school office by 9:30 on Friday 20th March.

If your child usually receives Free School Meals we will also be in touch with more information about how we will continue to provide this, with support from a scheme that the government has just announced.

This is as much as we know right now and we appreciate your continued patience as we deal with this ever-changing situation. We understand that this latest news will have an impact on you and your family and it’s far from ideal, but we’ll continue to keep in touch with any updates as the situation develops.

If you need to get in touch to share any concerns, please don’t hesitate to do so via our School Office.

World Book Day

On a positive note I am pleased to say that we are still celebrating World Book Day tomorrow, so can’t wait to see some fabulous costumes. Unfortunately we will not be able to carry out the planned book sale as planned

D.Rowe

Headteacher