Dear Parents and Carers,

Further to recent messages, Lydgate Infant School will be closed to most pupils from today (Friday 20 March) for an unspecified period. The school must now follow Sheffield City Council (click here to view) and Government guidance as we move to deal with what that will mean to the school community.

Firstly, thank you to all of you who have been following the guidance and supporting us and for responding so promptly to our request for information.

Following advice from our Sheffield City Council today, we will now be taking the following actions.

Key workers and vulnerable children

The school been asked to stay open to the children of key workers and vulnerable children who have no other child care as part of the city’s response to the pandemic. We know that many of you are doing a hugely important job in keeping our society healthy and well is so many different ways.Please see the DFE definition of Keyworker below in order to decide whether your child is eligible to come to school on Monday if you have no alternative childcare.Please note that parents and carers of vulnerable pupils will be contacted separately by the school to discuss their needs.

The government says, 'this is an offer to parents and carers and there is no requirement for parents and carers to send their children to school if they do not need or wish to do so.' Their aim is to offer school for those parents who do not have other child care thus ensuring those parents who need to can go to work but limit as much as possible those needing this facility as school staff will be limited.

We stress therefore, that to support us in offering this service that you follow the Government advice which asks that keyworkers should keep their children at home, wherever possible and schools are to remain open only for those children who absolutely need to attend i.e. there is no other child care.Provision for attending pupils will be different to normal, and will mirror the home learning activities for all children outlined below.

It is the school’s aim to offer breakfast and after school club provision as usual for those parents who need to use it if their children are attending school during the day as outlined above. They may be able to accommodate pupils who do not normally need this provision - please contact the school for further information.

Please note however, that even for keyworker parents and carers it is still important of course to keep your child at home if they show any Corvid-19 symptoms (a new continuous cough and/or a high temperature) as before and make sure the whole family self-isolate for a period of 14 days.

 

Home learning

If you do not fall into the above category and are therefore keeping your child at home, we are supporting home learning by sending a weekly email every Friday (assuming our staff are well enough), the first of which you will receive today.

Our home learning has been developed to mirror the learning objectives that would have been taught in class with tweaks to experiences and activities to acknowledge the “home learning” nature of the weeks to come. They outline ideas and resources that you may like to use to support your child’s learning but we also appreciate you will have some excellent ideas to achieve a given learning objective – please feel free to get creative! Whilst there is no commitment to completing the activities, we would encourage parents to support their children to continue with their learning at home. Lydgate Infant School will not expect to see a record of the learning you have completed with your child during this period, unless you wish to share this learning upon your child’s return!

Your child is welcome to use their learning log in order to complete any learning she or he undertakes whilst not in school. We are also able to provide each child with an additional exercise book should you wish.Y2 children are being provided with a pack of familiar equipment that may be useful to support home learning. If your child is not in school and you would like the resources please pop into school to collect or if you are self-isolating feel free to ask a friend to collect on your behalf.

We will continue to keep you updated with any further advice we receive and continue to follow government and city council guidance. As a school, we again wish to send out our very best wishes to you all at this difficult time. We continue to urge everyone to help each other as much as possible and to continue to create and maintain the wonderful support networks for vulnerable members of our much valued community.It is through supporting and helping each other that our community will best navigate the exceptionally challenging few weeks to come.

 

List of Key Workers as defined by the Government

Health and social care

This includes but is not limited to doctors, nurses, midwives, paramedics, social workers, care workers, and other frontline health and social care staff including volunteers; the support and specialist staff required to maintain the UK’s health and social care sector; those working as part of the health and social care supply chain, including producers and distributers of medicines and medical and personal protective equipment.

Education and childcare

This includes nursery and teaching staff, social workers and those specialist education professionals who must remain active during the COVID-19 response to deliver this approach.

Key public services

This includes those essential to the running of the justice system, religious staff, charities and workers delivering key frontline services, those responsible for the management of the deceased, and journalists and broadcasters who are providing public service broadcasting.

Local and national government

This only includes those administrative occupations essential to the effective delivery of the COVID-19 response or delivering essential public services such as the payment of benefits, including in government agencies and arm’s length bodies.

Food and other necessary goods

This includes those involved in food production, processing, distribution, sale and delivery as well as those essential to the provision of other key goods (for example hygienic and veterinary medicines).

Public safety and national security

This includes police and support staff, Ministry of Defence civilians, contractor and armed forces personnel (those critical to the delivery of key defence and national security outputs and essential to the response to the COVID-19 pandemic), fire and rescue service employees (including support staff), National Crime Agency staff, those maintaining border security, prison and probation staff and other national security roles, including those overseas.

Transport

This includes those who will keep the air, water, road and rail passenger and freight transport modes operating during the COVID-19 response, including those working on transport systems through which supply chains pass.

Utilities, communication and financial services

This includes staff needed for essential financial services provision (including but not limited to workers in banks, building societies and financial market infrastructure), the oil, gas, electricity and water sectors (including sewerage), information technology and data infrastructure sector and primary industry supplies to continue during the COVID-19 response, as well as key staff working in the civil nuclear, chemicals, telecommunications (including but not limited to network operations, field engineering, call centre staff, IT and data infrastructure, 999 and 111 critical services), postal services and delivery, payments providers and waste disposal sectors.

If workers think they fall within the critical categories above they should confirm with their employer that, based on their business continuity arrangements, their specific role is necessary for the continuation of this essential public service.