Hertford Infant and Nursery School

Remote Learning 

26^th February 2021

Dear Parents and Carers,

Looking forward to 8^th March 2021

After what has been such a challenging few months for everyone, we are so pleased to be planning for all our children to return from 8^th March 2021. We are continuing to work through the Government recommendations to ensure our return will be safe and calm on Monday 8^th March, however this letter contains some of the essential details you will need to know. Please ensure you read it carefully and keep it for your reference.

Bubbles and safety

To keep all the children and staff safe, we are going to be working in “bubbles”; these will be class bubbles inside and year group bubbles outside and in communal areas of the school. Nursery and Reception will be a bubble together. We will still be doing additional handwashing with all the children and extra cleaning throughout the day as well as following other Government recommendations for schools.

Uniform

We are expecting children to be wearing school uniform from Monday 8^th March 2021.  We will be spending more time outside so it is really important that your child also has a waterproof coat, sensible shoes and a cap or sunhat if the weather is good. However, we understand that if you are wanting to air or wash your child’s clothes more frequently, there might be some occasions when this is not possible. Please just try your best.

PE and Forest School

On P.E. days your child can come to school in P.E kit: T-Shirt, joggers or leggings (shorts if the weather is warm enough) trainers and their school sweatshirt. Older children should keep a spare T-Shirt in their locker, in case they need to change. All PE will be outside as much as possible so please make sure they have appropriate kit. For Forest school children can come to school in their forest school clothes, with a change of uniform for after the session, however, we will not encourage the children to change into their uniform if their clothing is dry. Please note, a text will be sent to remind families of the forest school days for the specific year groups. Thank you.

Staggered break and lunch times

As a safety measure we will need to stagger the children’s lunch and break times and ensure that each Year group bubble has their own play equipment to use. We will go through all of this with the children on their first day back.

Resources and equipment

We have been making up resource packs for every child, this has all the equipment that they will need including stationery and some learning tools like 100 squares and word lists in them. Your child will not be able to bring in or use their own stationery we will provide them with everything they need.

What should my child bring in?

• Named coat in case of bad weather
• Named sunhat or cap if the weather is good
• Named water bottle- this is very important
• A bag to keep their reading book, and the things identified here in
• If your child is bringing in a mobile phone please make sure you have signed the permission forms, phones will be stored in year group boxes collected in the classroom then taken to the office for safe keeping.
• A fruit snack will be provided daily for all Infant children.
• Milk will be available for Infant children who are registered

Other items from home

It is really important your child does not bring in any other toys or items from home at this time. If they do bring things in we will need to ask you to take them away with you. This is to help keep everybody safe.

Reading books

Children being able to borrow reading books and read at home is extremely important. We will be putting systems in place to ensure that all children will be able to safely borrow books and so that when they are returned, they can be left for the recommended period of time before anyone else uses them again.

Attendance

We would like to reassure all families that we have strict Covid measures and thorough risk assessments in place. All children will again be expected to attend school and it is a statutory legal requirement. We understand that there may be some families and/or children who are anxious about returning to school, and there may be a very small number of pupils unable to attend in line with public health advice, because they or someone in their household or bubble have had symptoms or a positive coronavirus test result themselves, and are required to self-isolate. Any absences will need to be reported to the school office in the usual way, in line with the schools’ Attendance policy and the Local Authority’s Code of Conduct.

The Department of Education states that the usual rules on school attendance will apply, including:

• parents’ duty to secure that their child attends regularly at school where the child is a registered pupil at school and they are of compulsory school age;
• schools’ responsibilities to record attendance and follow up absence
• the availability to issue sanctions, including fixed penalty notices in line with local authorities’ codes of conduct

If you would like to discuss your own exceptional circumstances or if you are worried about anything related to attendance or absence from school, please contact Zoe McGuigan or Justine Harvey. We will do everything we can to support families in ensuring that children return to school. Thank you so much for your support.

Lunches

Please see lunch menu attached. (Infant children are entitled to a free meal, Junior school lunches need to be paid for using ParentPay unless your child is eligible for Free School Meals).

Start and finish times

To avoid overcrowding at the school gates we need to maintain the previous arrangements, set in the autumn term, at the start and end of the day. The grid below shows the start and finish time for each year group and where your child should be dropped off or picked up from. We understand that for some of you with children in more than one year group this may be difficult. Please don’t worry, arrive at the earliest time that your children should be in and then work your way around, we will understand! It is important, however that those who can arrive at allocated time slots do- this is to keep us all safe. We are still asking that you keep family members to a minimum at drop off and pick up, to avoid lots of people in the same place at the same time. We have ensured that all children get their full hours in school. Please see the timetable below:

Speaking to teachers/ access to the office

The teachers will need to be with the children at the start and end of day, if you have an important message for that day, please phone or email the office and they will get it to your child’s class teacher. However, we do still very much want to keep our home school contact going so please, if you do want to speak with your child’s teacher, contact the office and ask them to call you or arrange for a meeting. Unfortunately, we are still not in a position where parents can come into school. If you need to be in for any reason then you must phone or email the office in advance and make an appointment, unless we have arranged a meeting with you.

Breakfast and After School Club

We will be running Breakfast Blub as normal, however, to ensure the children are kept safe in their bubbles each year group will have an area to eat and play in. Infant start time is 7.50am Junior start time is 7.45am.

After School Hub Club will run on a similar basis last term will look different upon the wider re-opening, due to restrictions on numbers and recommendations around not mixing. We will be able to provide after school HUB clubs, but these will need to be on the separate sites and will run from 3.00pm until 5.00pm until Easter, with a view that we will then review and potentially extend to 6.00pm on a need's basis.  We will not be able to provide a meal for the children in Hub Club, so your child can bring in a snack in a sealed bag. To express an interest please email the relevant school office for information on how to book (Infants- please request a booking form. Juniors- Please look out for further information next week about booking for Junior children).

It is important to note that if we only have 3 children or less in the club, we cannot justify running the Breakfast club or HUB Club (after school childcare). We will keep you updated.

We will not be running after school enrichment clubs on either site until the new academic year; we cannot take the additional risk of inviting a range of club providers into our site at this time.

Please ensure you contact us via email at: admin@hertfordinf.brighton-hove.sch.uk OR admin@hertfordjun.brighton-hove.sch.uk  if you require Breakfast and/ or After School provision then the office will send you the relevant booking forms. Breakfast club at the Juniors will now require booking on ParentPay, and spaces are limited.

Kind regards,

Hertford team