The Prime Minister’s statement last night (Monday 4th January) confirmed the national lockdown to take effect from today.
Schools are included in this latest directive and will remain CLOSED until at least February half term.
To that extent, Fulwell Junior School is officially CLOSED as of today.
Can we make a final appeal to our families who have advised they need their child to access school in the Critical/Key Worker capacity. The Government stance is clear – individuals MUST stay at home as far as possible, only leaving home for essential reasons as set out on the Government website.
This means that if you can work from home, you should.
Before you make the decision to send your child back to school, we must advise the following:
- The Key Worker response has been overwhelming to the stage where it is negating the purpose of closure in the first place;
- We still need to protect our staff from the potential risks of children accessing school and initially wanted to restrict groups to no more than 15 children – this is now at a crucial tipping point and some groups could potentially see numbers in excess of this;
- We need to balance the deployment of staff between in-school support and the delivery of the remote/blended learning agenda.
- We URGE you to ONLY request school support if there is absolutely no other alternative open to you – by that we mean those of you who can work from home, and are thus able to look after your own child, should do so and instead take up the option of the remote/blended learning schedule we are about to issue rather than have your child attend school.
If only ONE of you is a Key Worker, we have to assume the other adult in the household can remain at home and can therefore look after your child. In such cases we would NOT expect your child to return to school. To do so is putting yourself and others at unnecessary risk.
Please double check your Key Worker eligibility in line with the DfE guidance here:-
Please seriously consider whether you need to send your child to school. The Government have enforced this closure for a reason – we are all still highly vulnerable to the risks of Covid-19 particularly in view of the latest, more aggressive strain that has led to the lockdown in the first place. Please support us in protecting yourselves and our school community.
If after reading this statement you have reconsidered your request to have your child return to school, please advise us as soon as possible so we can make the necessary adjustments. Please ensure you do this before 3.00pm today. Thank you.