Dear Parents and Carers,

I hope you had a restful and peaceful break.  I’d like to take this opportunity to wish you and your family a happy and healthy new year.  There has been some updated guidance in relation to COVID-19 that I need to share with you.

Attendance

Attendance at the academy continues to be mandatory.  All students are expected to attend each day unless unwell or for another exceptional reason.  

Exams

Year 11 GCSE exams will go ahead this summer.  The Government is determined that the exams will take place and that students will have the opportunity to demonstrate what they know.  Our P6 programme students will continue and all students in Year 11 will remain on site until 4pm.    

Face Masks

All school age children from Year 7 to Year 11 are now required – unless medically exempt – to wear a face mask in corridors and classrooms.  Please send your child with a mask each day.  The reality is that this is the best way to minimise the transmission of COVID-19 and it is something we can all do to protect each other and our wider community.  Please make sure masks are washed regularly.

Testing

We are carrying out testing this week for returning students.  This is a really effective way to help us stop the spread of COVID-19 in the academy and the wider community.  Parents of students in Years 8-10 can still give consent for their child to have a test by completing this form.  Again, this is something we can all do to keep one another safe.  

The link to the schedule for this week’s testing is at the end of this letter.

Please can I strongly emphasise how important it is that students continue to test twice a week at home.

Isolation 

If a student tests positive for COVID following a PCR test they must:

• isolate for 7 days;
• return to the Academy on day 7 but only if they have had a negative lateral flow test on day 6 and day 7;
• continue to isolate for the full ten days if they do not have negative lateral flow tests on days 6 and 7.

If a student is a contact with a positive case, they do not need to isolate, but they must take lateral flow tests for the next 7 days to check that they have not contracted the virus.

Staffing Shortages

You will have heard lots of news stories about projected staff shortages in academies as a result of isolating teachers and support staff.  At present this is not the case here at the academy.  However, I want to let you know that, in the event that we do start to experience increased cases of the COVID-19, our number one priority will be to keep the academy open so students can continue with face-to-face learning.  It may be that students are taught by a cover teacher or their classes are combined.  It is only as a very last resort that we would move back to home learning.  We will do everything in our power to keep the academy open for learning.

What can we do together to keep students learning?

You can help us  by ensuring that your child brings a mask each day and keeps testing twice a week at home.  In the academy we will do a number of things to stop the spread of COVID like not holding whole year-group assemblies for the time being.  Together, we can successfully ensure that all of the young people can continue to learn in the academy.  We all know that this is the best place for young people: both from an academic perspective but also in terms of their general wellbeing.  

Report Positive Cases

It will help us to monitor the situation if you can continue to report confirmed cases of COVID to us using this email:  covidreporting@coopstoke.co.uk .

Thank you

I know that we are entering the third year of the pandemic now.  Inevitably, we will be reaching a point of fatigue with still more new and changing guidance.  However, I want to thank you for doing everything possible, and working with us, to ensure that we limit the spread of the virus and can keep our students learning.