Dear Parents,
I am sure many of you were watching the Prime Minister’s announcement as we all were this evening.
As an initial response to this statement please see some key information below;
With immediate effect, schools in England are now closed to all children other than those who are classed as vulnerable or have Critical Worker parents. The latest guidance on this criteria can be found here;
Therefore Birches First School will be closed to all but these children from Tuesday 5th January. Our ‘emergency online learning offer’ will be made available tomorrow by 9.30am. Tomorrow, staff will begin preparing our full offer for the coming days and weeks. Children attending school will complete their learning during the school day as normal. Details about this offer, as shared in September, are available on our website http://www.birches.staffs.sch.uk/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/Home-Learning-and-Lockdown-offer-September-2020-letter-for-parents.pdf
In addition to this provision, there will also be the usual online resources (Education City, My Maths, TT Rockstars, Numbots and Purple Mash and Rapid Phonics), please do make use of these platforms. Children can also complete tasks from their class Home Learning grid which can be found in the ‘Our Classes’ section of the website.
A survey link has been sent via text this evening for parents who fall under the Critical Worker criteria to complete. Please do so as soon as possible to enable us to put plans in place for our provision going forwards.
For children attending school tomorrow;
Children should wear full school uniform as usual. For Tuesday 5th January, school dinners will be available to those who require one and Birches Club will be open as usual. Provision/viability of school dinners and club will be reviewed tomorrow and we will update you as soon as possible. Drop off and collection times will remain as normal for Tuesday. Again, this will be reviewed once we have confirmation of numbers in attendance.
I hope this gives you enough information to act upon for tomorrow.
I will write again tomorrow with further information and detail. I am sure you will understand that with the short notice we are still awaiting further clarification on a number of areas as we await updated guidance from the government.
Please do not hesitate to contact us should you have any concerns or questions but most importantly, stay safe and well. We find ourselves once again facing a very challenging and uncertain situation but I am sure that together, our Birches community will support each other through the coming days and weeks.
Best wishes
S Varricchione
Headteacher
headteacher@birches.staffs.sch.uk