20^th March 2020

Dear Parents and Carers

It is with deep sadness that I am writing to let you know that our school will be closing today until further notice.  There is going to be a child care service in place and we have been told that in the first instance this is only available to families where both parents are in front line health, emergency or social care or education.  It is absolutely vital that we have as few children as possible using this service or else our capacity to control the spread of infection will be completely lost.  We have been told by the Local Authority that the group of families being able to access this care could be broadened if we have capacity to meet the demand and I will let you have further details of this as soon as they emerge.

I know lots of you have had your log-in details for the on-line learning opportunities and we are looking forward to getting started with this on Monday.  The teachers will be setting tasks for the children and will be able to respond to direct messages from them or you (within reason!).  It is a steep learning curve for all of us and there may well be some hiccups initially but we will do our best to get it right as soon as we can! 

Families in receipt of free school meals have been notified and will be able to collect a sandwich bag for children to eat at home for each of their children from the school from Monday onwards. We have a system in place and once we consolidate our system on Monday, hopefully that will remain the same for the rest of the week.  After next week, the meals are going to be delivered to a central location in the area and you will need to collect them from that point.  We will be able to give you further details about this when you collect your lunches next Friday. 

The next few months is going to be really difficult for us all and we do not underestimate how hard it will be for you to have all the children at home for a potentially extended period of time.  Do not hesitate to contact us if you need to discuss a particular situation in more detail and remember that you can always get the latest advice on phw.nhs.wales if you want to access further information.  The precautions which we have been taking in school over the last week are really important for you to be following at home too.

I cannot stress enough the importance of :

• Regular hand-washing throughout the day.
• Single use tissues to catch all coughs and sneezes.  Children to be advised to cough or sneeze into their elbow if a tissue is not available e.g. in the outdoor environment.
• Bleach based cleaning of all hard surfaces in the home throughout the day.
• Try not to let children share resources such as pens and pencils and wipe all the equipment after use.
• Ipads and other resources will need to be disinfected regularly after use.
• Social distancing is vitally important to keep us all safe.  Can we please ask that you keep a reasonable distance between yourself and others if you are coming to school at all.  This is also important in your homes and out in the community.  Please do not hang around entrance areas to school.
•  It would be helpful for the children if you can limit your conversations about the virus when they are around as they are obviously very concerned about the situation and there is a lot of very unhelpful information around on social media.
• If your child has any medication left in school, Particularly asthma pumps, then please call and collect them as soon as possible.

None of us have never experienced anything like this and we will do our very best to support you as best we can over the coming months.  Please do your best to follow all the public health advice given to keep you and your family safe and we hope to be up and running again as soon as we possibly can.

Pope Francis’ Prayer to Mary during the coronavirus pandemic

O Mary, You always shine on our path as a sign of salvation and hope. We entrust ourselves to you, Health of the sick, who at the cross shared the pain of Jesus, keeping your faith firm. You, know what we need and we are sure that you will ensure that, as in Cana of Galilee, joy and celebration can return after this moment of trial.

Help us, Mother of Divine Love, to conform to the will of the Father and to do what Jesus will tell us, who took our sufferings upon himself and took upon himself our pains to lead us, through the cross, to the joy of the resurrection.

AMEN.

Cofion Cynnes,

Take care and stay safe, 

Alex Riordan