19th March 2020 (11.00am)
Dear Parent(s)
Re: Re: COVID-19
An inevitable further update on how Highams Park School are responding to the announcement from the Government on the 18th March 2020. As you can imagine we will need to keep the flow of information going between the school, you as parents and the students in the coming months.
As you will be aware it was announced that during the COVID-19 crisis schools have been asked to shut the gates from this Friday afternoon. I will write to you again later on today to confirm our arrangements for Friday 20th March 2020, once I have had opportunity to review the levels of staff that are available to us.
Schools have also been asked to continue to provide a safe place for students who are the children of “Key workers”, have an EHCP plan, or an allocated Social Worker, during the crisis. We are obviously aware of those students with an EHCP plan and those with a Social Worker and are in the process of contacting you directly but at present, the school does not know which students have parents who may be classified as “Key workers”.
The Government have stated that they will be providing clarification of which jobs fall into the category of “Key Workers” at some point this morning. At the time of writing this, I have not yet seen its publication but will forward it to you, as soon as it is available.
In the meantime please could I ask that if you believe you may fall into this category that you complete an online survey here https://www.surveymonkey.co.uk/r/V3BLCC7. It would make sense to wait until the Key Workers are defined by the Government before completing the survey. However, I wanted to flag the process with you as soon as possible. Finally, there is a comments box on the survey, so if you are uncertain about which category you may fall in, or more generally please include these here. Your swift completion of the survey would be greatly appreciated to facilitate our planning for next week.
Many thanks for your cooperation with this request. As you will appreciate, the plans that we are making for this provision are very much dependent upon how many students may need the support and then indeed, how many staff are available to be able to provide it.
There are inevitably many questions from parents and students with regard to how Year 11 and Year 13 exam grades will be awarded following yesterday’s announcement. I will write to parents of both Year Groups separately but please be assured we will working with the Government led consultations on this to ensure your children, our students, are best represented during this process.
Yours faithfully
Mr Phil Grundy
Principal
