Carcroft School

Dear Parent/Carer,

I am writing with a little update regarding Covid-19 and where we currently stand as a school. At the moment, we currently have one live Covid Case in School, Mrs Lythe our Business Manager, this was shared with parents on Thursday last week. However, at the time of writing, we shared that nobody else was impacted as a result. Since then, after seeking further guidance from Public Health, it was confirmed that I (Miss Laing) was classed as being in contact with Mrs Lythe on Tuesday 3rd November, therefore, since Thursday evening, I have isolated and I am undertaking my role as Headteacher from home, with Miss Whitehead, Mrs Fox, Mr Longley and Mr Tucker running things in school.

In addition, Mrs Wilcox decided that as a precautionary measure, she would feel better isolating for 14 days and is therefore undertaking her role as Senior Admin Assistant from home too. This was not a recommendation from Public Health, but ultimately staff voice is important as we have a duty of care to maintain staff health and well-being, therefore, I fully respected Mrs Wilcox’s decision to isolate and as a result we will both return on Wednesday 18th November.

In summary, Mrs Wilcox, Mrs Lythe and myself are all undertaking our roles from home and Mrs Atkinson is manning the office. Please may we ask that you refrain from contacting the office as much possible and contact your child’s class teacher if you have any questions during this time.

Mrs Atkinson is also struggling to juggle the number of pupils arriving late in a morning with her being on her own, please may we ask that you arrive on time in the morning so that your child can go into class with their peers and saves Mrs Atkinson a job. Thank you in advance.

Just this morning, Mrs Elmer has been asked to isolate as someone in her household is awaiting a test result. The guidance states that if this is positive, Mrs Elmer will be required to isolate, but if it is negative, Mrs Elmer can return to work. Until then, Miss Hart and our Trainee Teacher, Miss Clarke will look after Crew Elmer today and Mrs Elmer will ‘dial in’ to keep in contact with the class and will teach ‘live’ tomorrow. We will keep parents in the loop as soon as we have further information from Mrs Elmer.

In addition to staff isolating as outlined above, we have also had to make some staffing changes due to staff being asked to shield due to them being in the extremely clinically vulnerable category. This has unfortunately affected the Y3 classes as Mrs Lowe has been asked to shield at this time. We thought that we had this covered with Miss Hart and Mrs Elmer and Mrs Clarke would have been ok in Crew Elmer, but as a result of Mrs Elmer’s absence, we are now coming up with another plan in order to ensure that things can run smoothly in Year 3 in Mrs Lowe’s absence. We look forward to having Mrs Lowe back with us as soon as it’s proven safe to do so.

We will continue to keep parents in the loop as much as we possibly can during the next few weeks and will do everything in which we can in order to continue to educate the children of Carcroft whilst keeping everyone safe and well.

Thank you for your continued support,