Dear Parents/Carers,
I wanted to write a post today to provide an update on staff LFD testing and class bubble closures for Tuesday as there have been some changes since Friday evening when we sent our initial correspondence out.
As you are aware, we ask school staff to undertake an LFD test twice per week. Unfortunately, as a result of this weeks tests, we have had some positive results despite staff not showing symptoms or the typical symptoms of C-19. I am going to outline them below along with the classes who will be effected as a result of the positive tests:
The following bubbles will definitely be closed from Tuesday-Friday this week as we believe that there is a chance that your child may have had close contact (within 2m) with a positive case:
Y1- Crew Welburn will be closed due to a positive PCR result (Staff); isolate until and including Monday 29th March.
Y2- Crew Ferguson and Flaherty will be closed due to a positive PCR result (2 Staff) in each class; isolate until and including Monday 29th March.
Y3- Crew Shields will be closed due to a positive PCR result (Pupil)/we are awaiting a PCR Following a positive LFD on Friday for a member of staff; isolate until and including Monday 29th March.
Y4- Crew Boswell will be closed due to a positive PCR result (Staff); isolate until and including Monday 29th March.
The following class bubble might be closed due to a positive LFD result (staff) and pupils should isolate as a precaution until the PCR result is confirmed:
Y4- Crew Elmer- the member of staff is awaiting PCR results and if this is negative, pupils can return to school if positive, we will confirm isolation information.
The following classes CAN return to school on Tuesday as normal, as we have not had any positive results from the staff LFDs this weekend:
F1- Crew Nicholson & F2- Crew Godley
Y1- Crew Wilson
Y3- Crew Longley
Y4- Crew Marsh
Y5- Crew Gerrard & Y5/6- Crew McLoughlin
Y6- Crew Fox
Additional INSET Emergency Childcare…
If your child is now required to isolate, this starts from today, therefore, they are unable to come into school tomorrow.
If your child is not isolating, your emergency childcare place is still available and they will be greeted outside the school reception at 8.30 tomorrow morning and will finish at 2.45pm.
Firstly, I would like to apologise to any parents whom this may inconvenience in terms of work. Unfortunately, it was anticipated that schools might see an increase in the number of positive cases once schools returned on 8th March. Thankfully, the staff who have tested positive, either have mild symptoms or no symptoms at this time and I would like to wish them a safe and speedy recovery and would like to also thank them for their continued hard work and dedication to the pupils of CPS despite difficult circumstances.
In addition, I have been informed that the pupil in Y3 with a positive result is also okay too, but again, I would like to send the pupil our best wishes and hope that their symptoms remain this way and look forward to them returning after the Easter break.
In addition, I thought that it was important at this stage to share some data with parents in order to help to reassure parents that primary aged pupils are still not being hugely effected by the virus. Since last March, at CPS, we have luckily only had 5 pupils test positive for C-19 out of 310 pupils, this means that only 1.6% of our pupil population has tested positive in 12 months. In addition, until now, the symptoms in pupils tend to be very mild, much like a cold and we hope that this continues into the next term.
However, Mr Rupert Suckling from Public Health England has shared on the council website on Friday that Doncaster is seeing a rise in cases across the borough, in particular for the 14-19 age group. We are also aware that many primary aged pupils are in fact asymptomatic so it’s important that wherever possible, we are reducing close contact between them.
With this in mind, we have to try and play our part in reducing close contact. As I shared on a post yesterday, we are seeing a large number of pupils playing out on an evening, including playing with pupils from other classes, but also with pupils from other schools. We need to ensure that we continue to be really vigilant and if children are going to play out, that we possibly encourage them to play in a front garden with a friend from their own class. However, it is important that any pupil isolating until Monday 29th March does not play out just in case.
In addition, following a couple of parents sharing their concerns about pupils working in another classroom environment for the reading lesson, I spoke to Public Health and the Local Authority about our practise yesterday and shared what we were doing in order to ensure that we were still working within the guidance provided to schools, around 2m distancing and staff only having close contact with pupils/staff from their bubble. They both agreed that this was within the guidance and understood the rationale behind us doing this for Reading.
However, as a precaution, those classes in school this week, will have their reading lesson in their own bubble and we will revaluate our plans for reading for after the Easter break and will also seek parent voice around our plans for the teaching of Reading, in light of a couple of comments from parents on Friday. As always, we want to work with parents to ensure that as much as possible, we have the vast majority of parents onboard. I will be in touch about reading groupings later in the week.
Finally, other than reading groupings, our children do not mix with other class bubbles during the school day, as shared before, we ensure that pupils have their lunch in their bubble and only play with peers from their own bubble at breaktime and lunchtime.
We will continue with our staggered entry/exit to and from school, as this is supporting us to ensure that we have a reduced number of parents on site at any one time.
As a school, we continue to work extremely hard to ensure that we are adhering to social distancing guidance whilst providing an education and a safe place for the pupils of Carcroft.
We will be in touch regarding our educational offer for bubbles who are closed this week at some point tomorrow.
If you do have any queries, please do not hesitate to email me on:
In the meantime, have a lovely Sunday evening.
Miss Laing
Headteacher