Highbridge’s King Alfred School is making final preparations to safely re-open in the mid to late June for students in Years 10 and 12, it has been confirmed.
As the lockdown is eased by the Government, the school says it aims to bring small groups of children and staff each day with social distancing and extensive safety measures in place.
Head teacher Nathan Jenkins says there will be limited access to many areas of the school, that hours will be limited, and that hand washing stations will be sited at every entry point along with other controls.
He says: “We have spent the past weeks making detailed plans that will enable us to provide this vital face to face support to our students during this critical phase in their education.”
“The basis of all of our discussions has been focussed on how we can do this whilst ensuring the safety of all students and staff as well as the safety of everyone’s families and our whole community.”
“As you will be aware, we have been open every day, including over the holidays, for the children of key workers and vulnerable children since the government introduced the national social distancing measures. This has enabled us to ensure that our detailed risk assessments are based upon existing working practices that we have been using to ensure the safety of the whole school community.”
“We are now developing plans that will enable us to potentially open school more extensively from mid to late June for those students in Years 10 and Year 12, whilst maintaining the existing provision for those children who are either defined as vulnerable or whose parents are key workers.”
“What is clear at this stage, is that the Years 10 and 12 provision will only involve small numbers of students attending school on different days.”
“This will allow us to facilitate the face to face contact with the students whilst at the same time ensuring social distancing and good hygiene are managed effectively. Home learning will also still be necessary for students in Years 10 & 12, to support what they do in class and to help them with the subjects that they are not doing in school.”
“Students in Years 7-9 will continue to receive work and support at home in the same way as they have for the past few months. At this stage we have received no guidance about a return to school for these students.”
“As a school we are trying to do our very best to support all members of our community during these very challenging and difficult times. Thank you for your continued support and we look forward to welcoming your sons and daughters back to school, albeit, a very different type of school to the one they were last in.”
The head teacher adds that he will be contacting parents with more details next week with more details.
He added that online working for students has worked really and that he has been “really encouraged” by the standard of work.
