St Anne's Catholic School St Anne's Catholic School

17th March 2020 PM

17th March 2020

Good afternoon,

First of all, thanks for the support we have been receiving from parents as we do our best to remain open at this difficult time. We want to remain open to as many pupils as we can for as long as we can; that is our aim. Our attendance for the year groups that are in is actually quite strong considering the national picture.

When should my child be off?

Since yesterday evening, the advice is that if your child, or anyone in the home they live in, comes down with coronavirus-like symptoms, that is a persistent cough or a fever, then for the whole family to isolate for 14 days. If this happens, please contact the school and tell us that you are isolating for 14 days. We can then better record your child’s absence and know not to expect them for 14 days. If your child is well, they are expected to attend school.

School will remain closed for years 8 and 9.

The change of advice from the government yesterday evening has meant that we have had staff having to self-isolate for 14 days due to the mild symptoms of others in their families. The numbers of staff that have had to do this meant we had to make the last minute decision to close for years 8 and 9 today. We have had a look at the likely absence of staff over the next few days and it appears that it is unlikely to get better. As such, we are closing for years 8 and 9 for the rest of the week in the first instance. We remain open for years 7, 10, 11, 12 and 13 currently. Some points around this decision:

Why this arrangement? We needed to close for two year groups based on staff absence. We are aware that year 7 are the least likely to be able to be left alone during the school day, and years 10-13 are working towards their qualifications.
For those year 9s who have yet to return their option choices, please do not worry about the deadline, we will communicate a change of deadline to you as soon as we can.
For parents of years 8 and 9 pupils who are NHS workers or work for the emergency services, please do send your daughter to school if needed to allow you to avoid having to take time off from these important roles. Can you email info@st-annes.uk.com to let us know that you are doing so to allow us to expect her. Normal lessons for years 8 and 9 will be suspended, but she can be kept safe and get on with some work.
For families that are in receipt of free school meals in years 8 and 9 that want to continue to access these, your daughter is welcome to come in between 12:35 and 13:15 to have a hot meal. She is expected to wear full school uniform when she does so and to sign in at reception and leave by reception by 13:15 so we know who is on site.

Work from home for years 8 and 9

Attached is a starting point for online work for years 8 and 9. More details will be coming soon. Keep an eye on emails for more information. If accessing online materials is difficult for your family, please contact us on info@st-annes.uk.com.

Sister Act

It is with great sadness that we are going to have to cancel the 4 public performances of Sister Act on Wednesday through to Sunday. I know this is going to be as upsetting for families as it is for us at school but we are taking our lead from the West End which is closing all its performances. The cast have been informed and they have taken it really well. I am extremely proud of them. They will have performed it to year 7 this afternoon. There has been quite an expense to the school for the setting up of the show, and if families are able to forego refunds we would be grateful, but we of course will refund anyone that would like one. Excitingly, we are working on a technological solution to allow us to live stream a closed-door show tomorrow evening, as long as enough cast members are not self-isolating. We would really like to have as many people watch live tomorrow evening and it will be free to do so. Our girls and staff have worked really hard over the last 6 months and deserve a chance to shine. We intend to use our Facebook account to do this. Follow us on at https://www.facebook.com/StAnnesUK to watch it live. We are ironing out the kinks and cannot guarantee it will be film-quality, but we will do the best we can! Also, we are allowing two family members per cast member (who live in the same house as the cast member) to attend tomorrow night if they would like, and staff have been invited to attend if they can so that there is a bit of an audience. It’s not at all ideal, but we want to give them the chance to shine and for direct family members to be a part of it. Please email info@st-annes.uk.com to let us know to expect you. We will do all we can to mitigate the risk of a small group meeting in this way.

Year 7 parents evening

We are also having to cancel the upcoming year 7 parents evening on the 24^th March. If parents have particular concerns they want to raise with their daughter’s tutor or with Miss Langford, her head of year, please do get in touch at info@st-annes.uk.com.

Safeguarding

With reduced contact between our students and school, we wanted to remind you of our safe@st-annes.uk.com email account which is available to pupils if they have any worries about safety, and also if parents have concerns about a child. It is monitored regularly and is a quick way to get to our safeguarding team if you have any concerns. Please do share this with your daughters too.

Keeping the school clean

Tutors have spoken to their tutor groups about how to wash hands and we are keeping the school as clean as we can. We have bolstered lots of our current cleaning in terms of frequency and what is being cleaned. We have ensured that the soap is topped up in the dispensers in the toilets regularly and that hand sanitizers are available in the canteen. We continue to make sure that surfaces such as touchscreens are regularly cleaned and that pupils wash their hands at the start and end of any practical work.

School Trips

Although the current advice is that school trips can go ahead, we believe this is very likely to change in the very near future. As such our future trips through March and April are cancelled.

We appreciate your continued support as we work to ensure we all remain healthy and well and can continue to learn as best we can.

Thank you

Mr Rouse

Headteacher