Government Updates

20 March 20

Dear Parent/Carers

As you all know the government announced on Wednesday evening that all schools will be closed as from today until further notice. The purpose of the closure is to reduce the spread of the COVID-19 virus and limit the number of fatalities. The government recognises that there are a number of key frontline workers who are essential in ensuring the safety of our citizens. Therefore, schools have been asked to stay open to these professionals to allow them to fulfil essential roles.

As a school, we are keen to support our key workers and have agreed to stay open over the Easter holidays to families who have no alternative care and are required to continue working. We understand that for those parents who do not fit the criteria of key worker, this is a very stressful and anxious time. However, please understand that we are unable to make any exceptions, despite the difficulties that we know many parents will face, and I sincerely apologise for this.

We must stress the importance of limiting the number of children that attend school and any child that can possibly stay at home, must do so.

In order for your child to attend school you must fit the following criteria:

You must fit in to the category of Key Worker in one of the roles listed below

If there are any other adults in the home that are not in full time employment, your child will not be able to attend school

If you are a single parent, but do not fit in to the category of key work, we are sadly unable to allow your child to attend school

From Monday 23rd March, we will not be able to offer early breakfast or after school provision, so all children must be collected at 3.15pm unless they have permission to walk home (KS2 children only). From Monday, the school will open to eligible children from 8.30am and breakfast will be provided. Provision will be made for children on free school meals who are unable to attend school, but we are still waiting to receive information on how this will be done. We will inform you as soon as we hear anything.

We understand that many parents will only need to bring children on certain days of the week – the days they are actually at work. Can parents please ensure that children only attend on those days and provide us with this information a week in advance, in order for us to organise staffing. As  

you will appreciate, the majority of our staff have young families and face the same issues with childcare and vulnerable family members; therefore, we need to ensure we are also supporting them to fulfil their roles as key workers whilst allowing them to take care of their families.

Work packs have been prepared for all children who are unable to come to school from Nursery to year 6 and can be collected from the main office.

The school will be open to all parents who require any advice or support in the coming weeks and we will keep lines of communication open with regular updates. Please be assured that we are keen to get all our children back as soon as we possibly can and sincerely apologise for the stress and pressure that this will cause many of our families.

Hope you all stay safe and well during this period.

Warmest regards

Mrs P Petrie

Headteacher

Key Worker List

Health and Social care

Doctors, Nurses, Midwives, Paramedics, Social Workers, Care Workers and Frontline staff, medicine dispenses

Education and Childcare

Nursery and Teaching Staff, Teaching Assistants, Caretakers, school admin staff and specialist educational professionals

Local and national Government

Only those essential administrative occupations essential to the effective delivery of COVID-19 response

Essential Public service works including payment of benefits and government agencies

Public Safety and National Security

Police and support staff, Armed forces personnel, Fire and Rescue service employees, National crime agency staff, Border control, Prison staff, Probation staff, national security

Transport

Water, road and rail passenger, freight transport workers

Utilities, Communication and Financial Services

Bank, building society and financial market infrastructure. Oil, gas, electricity and water service workers. Waste disposal (Council Refuse Workers) Civil Nuclear and chemical plant workers (essential plant workers only). Network operations and telecommunications (field engineers, communication call centre staff, 999 and 111) IT and Data infrastructure linked to the communication network. Postal service and delivery

Key Public Services

Undertakers, Journalists, Broadcasters, Justice System, Religious leaders, Frontline charity workers (Red Cross, Salvation Army, Samaritans etc.)

Food and Necessary goods

Food production, processing, distribution, sales and delivery. Also, those responsible for provision of other essential goods (hygiene products and veterinary medicines)

COVID-19 – Update 4 12th May 2020

We hope that all our children and families are keeping well. It has been lovely to see some of the children as they have come with parents to collect work packs – we miss them all dearly!

You will no doubt have watched in anticipation the Prime Minister deliver his easing of the lockdown address on Sunday evening. I am sure you will have questions as we do too. We are waiting to receive more information from the government about what this means for our school. In the short term, nothing has changed and we will provide further information in the coming days and weeks as we are made aware of it.

The conditional plan of the government is to enter phase 2 on June 1st with a possible phased reopening of primary schools for pupils in Reception, Y1 and Y6. The government say that this may happen if the scientific data shows that it is safe to do so and is dependent on successfully controlling the spread of the virus. More information will be provided on this matter as and when we receive it.

As the Prime Minister stated on 7th May 2020, the coronavirus is the most vicious threat this country has faced in his lifetime and the overriding priority remains to save lives.

It is my absolute pleasure and privilege to be Head Teacher at Bankfields Primary School and myself and the leadership team take our responsibilities extremely seriously and will always put the wellbeing and safety of our children, families, governors and staff first. Going forward, please know and rest assured that any decisions made will be absolutely based on this premise.

With best wishes,

Mrs Patsy Petrie

White Section
http://www.redcar-cleveland.gov.uk/healthyschool.nsf/Web?ReadForm&id=42D9886E2BC3BE8F8025780000326BF1
https://www.gov.uk/government/organisations/ofsted
http://www.peoplesinfonet.org.uk/kb5/redcar/directory/home.page

Privacy Policy

We regard your privacy as important and any personal information you give to us will be used in accordance with the Data Protection Act and the General Data Protection Regulations.

We do not store personal information about individuals who visit this site except where they provide contact information via our contact us page and contact forms available on various pages throughout the website.

Any information you provide will only be used for the reasons specified and it will not be shared with any third party without your consent, unless required by law.

Your contact details are kept securely and are only accessed by authorised members of staff as part of the provision of school services. If you do not wish us to keep this contact information please tell us.

This website uses Google Analytics which provides statistical data about the usage of the site. This information is not used to identify individuals, but is collected to provide us with an understanding of the areas of interest on our site and how our site is being used.

If you are connected to the internet you will have an IP Address. This may take the form of a figure, such as 333.333.22.1. The address will be automatically collected and logged as part of the connection of your computer to our web server and may be used to determine the total number of visits to each part of the site. This data is not collected and used for other purposes.

This website contains links to other websites. The School is not responsible for the privacy practices of other sites or organisations and recommends you consult the privacy information on those sites.

This policy will be reviewed and updated versions will be posted on the website.

If you have any questions about the use of your personal information, the Information Commissioner is the independent regulator for both Data Protection and Freedom of Information.

Browser Notifications.

Our site implements browser notifications so that you can receive updates direct to this browser, we aim to send only important information on this method such as event updates or school wide issues.

For more information please click here to find out more.