Dear Parent/Carers,
Update on School Closure
I’m sure like me, many of you will have watched the Prime Minister’s address to the nation yesterday evening.
You will have heard the Prime Minister indicating that the government believes it may be in a position to implement a phased re-opening of schools from 1stJune, starting with pupils in Reception, Year One and Year Six. This is part of the government’s conditional plan, which it says will remain under regular review.
As you can imagine we all want to get the children back into school as soon as it is safe to do so. We do not want to see the classrooms at St. Luke’s empty for a day longer than they need to be.
However the overarching priority has to be the safety of everyone in the school community.
This week, I am working with the Chair of Governors, Councillor Tariq and the Vice Chair of Governors, Reverend Cook to gain a better understanding of the government’s plan in terms of reopening school. We have already started to receive advice that will give us a clearer picture of what we need to have in place prior to opening St. Luke’s again.
In the short term our school remains closed to all children with the exception of the children accessing the emergency childcare provision. I will write to you in the coming days with further information as soon as I receive it.
Should your circumstances have changed and you need to request a place in the emergency childcare provision as you are a keyworker, have a child with an EHCP or your family has a social worker you can contact school using the school email address stlukes@bury.gov.uk. You will need to provide the name of your child/children, your job title and name of your employer so that we can confirm if our child is eligible for a place. You should only request a place in the emergency childcare provision if you have no other childcare available. Please find below a list of keyworkers as set out by the government.
Keyworkers
Health and social care
This includes but is not limited to doctors, nurses, midwives, paramedics, social workers, care workers, and other frontline health and social care staff including volunteers; the support and specialist staff required to maintain the UK’s health and social care sector; those working as part of the health and social care supply chain, including producers and distributers of medicines and medical and personal protective equipment.
Education and childcare
This includes nursery and teaching staff, social workers and those specialist education professionals who must remain active during the COVID-19 response to deliver this approach.
Key public services
This includes those essential to the running of the justice system, religious staff, charities and workers delivering key frontline services, those responsible for the management of the deceased, and journalists and broadcasters who are providing public service broadcasting.
Local and national government
This only includes those administrative occupations essential to the effective delivery of the COVID-19 response or delivering essential public services such as the payment of benefits, including in government agencies and arms length bodies.
Food and other necessary goods
This includes those involved in food production, processing, distribution, sale and delivery as well as those essential to the provision of other key goods (for example hygienic and veterinary medicines).
Public safety and national security
This includes police and support staff, Ministry of Defence civilians, contractor and armed forces personnel (those critical to the delivery of key defence and national security outputs and essential to the response to the COVID-19 pandemic), fire and rescue service employees (including support staff), National Crime Agency staff, those maintaining border security, prison and probation staff and other national security roles, including those overseas.
Transport
This includes those who will keep the air, water, road and rail passenger and freight transport modes operating during the COVID-19 response, including those working on transport systems through which supply chains pass.
Utilities, communication and financial services
This includes staff needed for essential financial services provision (including but not limited to workers in banks, building societies and financial market infrastructure), the oil, gas, electricity and water sectors (including sewerage), information technology and data infrastructure sector and primary industry supplies to continue during the COVID-19 response, as well as key staff working in the civil nuclear, chemicals, telecommunications (including but not limited to network operations, field engineering, call centre staff, IT and data infrastructure, 999 and 111 critical services), postal services and delivery, payments providers and waste disposal sectors.
Kind Regards
Miss M Michael
Headteacher