Vigo Primary School will follow instructions from Department of Education on the COVID-19 (Coronavirus) and Public Health England.

 

The Department of Education is emailing the school daily with advice and instructions. Currently the advice is that no school should be closed in response to a suspected or confirmed COVID-19 case unless advised to do so by the Public Health England.

 

As of Monday 16^th March:

 

We will no longer be holding assemblies in school so we can avoid larger gatherings of pupils and staff.

 

We will also postpone the Mother’s Day lunch this week.  We realise this will be disappointing for many but we feel this would be the sensible route at this point.  We will look to reschedule but can not tell you when at this point in time.

 

The Year 2 Author visit to Portway School has also been cancelled, refunds will be issued this week. We do understand that this again will be disappointing but it is the right decision at the present moment.

 

Planned football matches against other schools have been postponed until the Summer term. Once new dates are agreed we will share these with our families.

 

We will also be cancelling all after school clubs run by school staff until further notice. 

 

We also ask that visits to the school office are only carried out for essential reasons. Children arriving for breakfast club or late will be taken from parents at the office doors. The school will also no longer allow parents, carers or family members to use the school toilets. These measures are to try to limit unnecessary contact.

 

Absence recording:

 

As mentioned previously, we take advice daily from Public Health England and the Department of Education. 

 

At the time of writing, this guidance states that it is that only the person with symptoms who is to self-isolate.  This means if a parent or a sibling has a symptom, other members of the family still need to attend school.  If they do not, this will be marked as an unauthorised absence.  

 

In the same way, if you have decided to not send your child into school and no one in your house presents with symptoms this will not be authorised.  I reiterate that at present, advice is that all children, unless showing symptoms themselves, should be in school.  If you are choosing to keep your child off school and you hit 10 sessions (5 days) of unauthorised absence then a penalty code notice can still be issued.  

 

We have taken many measures in school to mitigate against infection, such as high levels of hand hygiene and reducing unnecessary contact. This is to prevent social isolation and remains the advice in relation to schools at present.  Of course, if this changes we will update our advice to you. 

 

We ask you all to be understanding about this as we do our best to keep the school running.