Dear Parents and Carers,

 

Wider Re-Opening

As you are aware, Sheffield City Council issued a statement last Friday confirming that school settings in Sheffield should not re-open more widely to pupils until Monday 15 June at the earliest, following advice from the city’s Director of Public Health that it is not safe to accommodate more pupils in school settings currently.A further update containing wider re-opening recommendations to schools from 15 June onwards is expected from Sheffield City Council early next week, following which the school will issue an update to parents and carers on Wednesday 10 June.

Should this update indicate that it is safe for the school to re-open more widely as planned, the school will do so as before on the basis of prioritising the attendance of Vulnerable Pupils, and for the children of Critical Workers who have already attended prior to 15 June or have indicated to the school that they wish their child to attend from 15 June.Should such planned wider re-opening be possible, the school will issue further details alongside the above update detailing the practical arrangements in place to ensure health and safety from 15 June onwards for attending pupils.Please note that the school is striving to minimise disruption where possible in this regard, with any staggering of drop-off/collection linked to established session times as far as possible, and school lunches still offered to pupils (but with an amended menu – please see attachment).However, please note that during the first phase of wider re-opening the school will be initially asking parents and carers to pick up their child earlier than usual during the Friday afternoon session to allow cleaning and preparation for the following week to be undertaken.

Following this first phase of wider re-opening, the school will continue to work closely with its partners and the city council to prioritise the attendance and transition needs of its remaining pupils as appropriate. The school understands the exceptionally difficult nature of the current situation for its community, and would again like to thank all parents and carers for their understanding and patience during this unprecedented time, and to assure you that any further information will be communicated to you as soon as possible.

 

Home Learning & Support

Many thanks for the messages and feedback that you have been providing over recent weeks about the home learning and support that the school is offering during the current school closure period.As you know, we are trying hard to get the balance right in regard to both, both as an individual school and as part of a national focus upon learning out of school (we know that many pupils are really enjoying the BBC’s bitesize provision at https://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize, judging by their feedback!).

Please note in this respect that we will now be sending each week’s home learning activities every Monday morning (rather than Friday afternoon), so that we can more coherently match the learning being undertaken by pupils both in and out of school and can therefore avoid any potential future mis-match in terms of pupil experience or learning coverage.

However, the recent delay of limited wider re-opening in Sheffield until mid-June (as detailed above) and growing recognition that developments in managing safely the national Covid-19 situation may be longer-term than initially thought, have led to increasing uncertainty as to whether all pupils may be able to return to school settings safely prior to the end of this summer term.Aware of the possibility that most of its pupils may be learning at home for a further extended period should any fuller return to school not be safe, the school is therefore currently reviewing its home learning and support offer from this perspective.Your child’s teacher will be contacting you as parents and carers as the school re-opens more widely to discuss this further, but we would also like to ask parents and carers to complete a short survey to help us to plan and adjust our offer to help it work for you and your child as well as it can – please look out for the survey link which will be sent out to all parents and carers next week.Many thanks.

                     

Twitter

As you may be aware, the school recently launched a new Twitter page, which will be integrated to the home page of the school’s website shortly.However, we need more followers (just search “lydgate infant school” to follow us), and definitely more contributions and posts items from our pupils!Please email pictures (make sure you have permission from anyone who is in the photo) and messages to enquiries@lydgate-inf.sheffield.sch.uk and we’ll do our best to get your post up as soon as we can!

 

 

Best wishes to you all, and many thanks for your continuing support.