School Update Friday 13th November 2020

Dear Parents and Carers,

Please be rest assured that we are following all current government guidelines in relation to Covid – 19.  We remain vigilant, cautious and seek guidance in response to all possible cases and are responding in line with the strict guidance. 

We understand that these are worrying times for all.  We will inform you if a positive test requires self - isolation for individuals or classes.

Social Distancing

For the Health and Safety of all our children and families, please ensure that Social Distancing measures are followed at all times on Castle Street at drop of and collection times.

Please remain at a distance of 2m from other pupils, staff and children. Thank you for continuing to wear your facemasks during these times.

Household Isolation

If one member of your household is displaying any symptoms of COVID19, all members of the household must self-isolate until a negative test result has been received. Please continue follow the Government Stay at Home Guidance for all children and members of the family.

This also includes all siblings. Your children must not attend School while a member of the household awaits a test result. If you are unsure of Isolation guidance or Testing Guidance, please click here for an easy to follow poster.

Remote Learning at Stroud Valley

In the event of whole class isolation in term time, we will provide structured, remote learning opportunities for all children to ensure the continued delivery of the Curriculum and a consistent approach to pupils learning during term time.

We are committed to providing continuity of education to our children in the event of absence, a class closure or whole School closure. We are grateful to our families who have helped our children to make this transition already this term.

Your child will need access to a tablet or computer to be able to fully engage in remote learning. Thank you for replying to our questionnaire; we are working on providing children with this access if required.

After School Provsion

We have risk assessed and made some alterations to our after school provision to fit in with school’s guidance for COVID.

PRE-BOOKING IS ESSENTIAL as we have to ensure the spaces we are using are large enough to maintain social distances between class groups.

The first hour is the busiest so we will be using the canteen and each class will be allocated a table and a set of resources to play with.

For the remainder of the time, play will be in the Elliott as usual. Children will remain in class groups and all resources used will remain within a group. They will then be set aside for 72 hours; the length of time the coronavirus can remain intact on surfaces.

Please collect children as usual from the canteen or Elliott building. We ask that adults do not enter the school building and leave the premises quickly, maintaining social distancing with others on site.

Arrival and Collection

Please click here for information about where to bring your child in the morning and where to collect.

We recognise that this may mean short differing times for siblings and so we thank you in advance for supporting this arrangement and enabling us to keep children and adults as safe as possible.

If arriving by the main gate, please follow the one-way system and use the colour bubbles for distancing.

Only one parent to accompany children to school.

Please practice social distancing and clear the site quickly and refrain from group gatherings on Castle Street.

Click here for the Stroud Valley Covid-19 Risk Assessment 

As we look forward to welcoming you all back to school on Wednesday 2nd September, I’m sure you’ll appreciate that it’ll feel different to what we came back to last year.

Staggered Start / Collection Times

We appreciate that many of you have children in different classes and so dropping and collecting at slightly different times is not as straight forward as coming to school has been in the past.

These arrangements, alongside those for lunchtimes, have been our most challenging, so once again thank you for playing your part and supporting us.

As we progress though the term and become used to the ‘new way’ please bear with us. We will regularly review arrangements and procedures; please be rest assured always that your children’s safety will be at the heart of all decisions made.

There will be lots of staff around next week to guide you through the arrangements if you aren’t sure of entrances / coloured circles etc.

Home Readers

The difference that regular reading with your children at home makes is immeasurable. We will be sending reading books home as normal and have a system in place where books that are returned to school will be put aside for 72 hours before being touched again. 

Uniform

Please send children to school in uniform as usual. There is no requirement from us that a clean uniform is worn every day. Please check that all items of uniform are clearly named, access to lost property will be more difficult than usual due to restricting the number of adults on site. 

Ventilation

In line with the guidance we have increased ventilation, check they have jumpers with them. They may not feel cold in the morning but sitting in a ventilated classroom for a length of time may require a jumper.

PE / Forest School Clothes

Please send PE clothes as normal and children will change in school. As will all uniform please check that it is clearly named.

Face Coverings

Children are not required to wear face covering to school. Government guidance is 'face coverings would have a negative impact on teaching and their use in the classroom should be avoided.'

The measures we have in place follow all guidance and are aimed to keep everyone as safe as possible.

 

Items from Home

Please do not allow children to bring anything from home except:

Water Bottles

If you are able to send a water bottle in with your child that would help and they will be kept with the individual child.

Packed Lunch Boxes

Please re-check the rota published previously about hot lunch / packed lunch provision.

What we will do if we suspect COVID -19 symptoms

We will isolate, supported by a socially distanced adult, the individual while we wait for a parent to collect.

The individual will have to be tested before returning to school and evidence of the result provided to the school.

If negative and the child feels well enough they no longer need to self-isolate and can return to school.

If anyone in the household tests positive, please follow government guidance and self-isolate for at least 10 days from the onset of symptoms and then return to school only if they do not have symptoms other than cough or loss of sense of smell/taste. This is because a cough or anosmia can last for several weeks once the infection has gone. The 10-day period starts from the day when they first became ill. If they still have a high temperature, they should keep self-isolating until their temperature returns to normal. Other members of their household should continue self-isolating for the full 14 days.

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/covid-19-stay-at-home-guidance

The school will immediately contact the local health protection team and follow their advice from that time.

How to Book a Test

Please follow this link

https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/coronavirus-covid-19/testing-and-tracing/

Please help us keep everyone as safe as possible and do not send your child to school if they are showing any symptoms of Coronavirus

• a high temperature – this means you feel hot to touch on your chest or back

• a new, continuous cough – this means coughing a lot for more than an hour, or or 3 or more coughing episodes in 24 hours (if you usually have a cough, it may be worse than usual)

• a loss or change to your sense of smell or taste – you’ve noticed you cannot smell or taste anything, or things smell or taste different to normal

If you think anyone in your house hold has symptoms

• arrange to get a test as soon as possible

• stay at home and do not have visitors until you have the results

• the school will require evidence of a negative test before your child can return

Lunchtimes

The use of the canteen and managing the separation of bubbles through the canteen has proved to be a challenge and therefore we are going to build slowly towards being able to offer hot meals for all.

Hot meals will initially be placed on a rota system.  Other children will eat sandwiches in their classrooms. There will be an opportunity to purchase a packed lunch from our canteen should you wish. Click here for the rota.

Breakfast Club

Breakfast club will be operating but in a slightly different manner. In order to comply with keeping class bubbles separate, there will be a table prepared for each class where children will eat and play until it is time for them to go to their classroom.

It would help enormously if you were able to book in advance. Please use the usual booking form that is on the website.

Communication

If you need to speak to a member of staff call the school office - 01453 764400

We are working to reduce the number of adults on site and reduce face to face contact.

Or use the e-mail - admin@stroudvalley.gloucs.sch.uk, this is checked on a regular basis as we will get back to you as soon as we can.

We are all looking forward to seeing you soon

Debbie Sleep

Follow this link to join a virtual tour of Stroud Valley Community School:

Virtual School Tour

 

CLICK HERE FOR SUMMER CLUB INFORMATION

 

Letter from the Governing Body

Dear Parents, Carers and Children,

With so many recent changes and September arriving shortly, the Governing Body thought it would be helpful to give everyone an overview of what has been and what might be happening.

As far as September is concerned you know as much as we do - we don’t get any advance warning on Government information and the newspaper headlines are often the first we hear of things too! We will keep you updated on any developments as and when they happen.  We will notify you by a text when updates are published on the school website.

The school would dearly love to have everyone back, full-time but as always we will prioritise the safety and wellbeing of all our staff and children. Fingers crossed that things are back to ’normal’ by the start of the new school year.

Firstly, we’d like to thank Ms Sleep and everyone at school, the teaching staff, teaching assistants, cleaners, catering staff and office staff for all their hard work and personal sacrifice since March.

The school has been open, even during Easter and half term, to look after our vulnerable children, and the children of key workers so our staff have not been able to rest or protect themselves as many of us have.

Many parents may not be aware that Ms Sleep had concerns about the Free School Meal voucher scheme and to ensure all our children were well fed she has personally organised 5 meals a week for 42 children by purchasing from local supermarkets, packing them into bags and arranging for socially distanced pick-ups. She is still doing this as the voucher scheme has had some well publicised problems.

From the outset the school was determined to maintain verbal contact with all the children, which few other primaries have been able to achieve. The telephone calls and visits have been very well received even though organising and making over 200 calls per week takes many hours and much effort alongside preparing home learning resources and teaching in school.

Ms Sleep and her team considered using video calling to provide some online lessons but we are very aware that not every family has the hardware, high-speed broadband and technical knowledge required. In addition, the well-known security issues for children, especially our vulnerable children, and staff meant delivering online lessons safely for all our children was not possible - the school wanted no child to be left behind. With that in mind it was decided that using the website was the best method to deliver home-learning whilst keeping our children safe.

The school has followed Government guidelines at all times and these are clear in stating that we should not rota children if possible so we have run a full school timetable from 8-50am -3-15pm everyday for all eligible children. This explains why we have not yet been able to have other years in school as there is simply no room after we have around 100 socially distanced Reception, Year 1 and Year 6 children in school.

 To rota children with either half-days or only a couple of days per week increases exposure for our staff, and in turn our children and the decision was taken that this was a risk both Ms Sleep and the Governing Body weren’t comfortable taking unless we were given an instruction to do so. You will all have seen the letter on 26th June outlining the school’s cunning plan to get absolutely everyone back together in the next few weeks, for a few hours at least. We understand how much the children are missing their classmates and teachers - the staff are really missing the children too!

School reports for all children will be with you by the end of next week. These will, as usual, be sent home with the children that are in school during the week. Others will be e-mailed or posted to you.

September 2020

In the envelope will be the transition information for next year including name of teacher and our plans for meeting them and the classroom through a video format.

 

We are very grateful to you and the children for all the hard work with the home learning and we always value feedback so please make a suggestion, add a comment or express any opinions on the admin@stroudvalley.gloucs.sch.uk address.

Looking forward to seeing you soon!

Best Wishes

The Governing Body

 

For support, advice and recommendations about 'surviving' at home during lockdown please follow the link below to a really helpful local publication 'Families'   https://issuu.com/familiesonline/docs/gloucester  we hope you find it helpful.

With families using more apps to communicate during lock down we would like to draw your attention to the following information about the apps Zoom and House Party. Your child may be using these (either with, or without you) so we would encourage you to read these informative posters and discuss them with your child.  Zoom  House Party

Due to the on-going nature of the current situation we know many families are struggling to cope with the additional pressures of social distancing and spending long periods of time in their homes with children and young people. The Family Information Service advice line  provide some practical parenting support to parents click here to find out how to contact them and what suport they can offer you.