Charlton School

12.06.20 LCT update to parents

Dear Parents,

I hope you and your families are safe and well. It has been a long time in lockdown and I know it has not always been easy for you balancing working from home, childcare and home schooling.

It has been a really positive week for us as we have seen children returning to school in nursery, reception, Y1 and Y6 at HLC Primary and Wrekin View Primary. So far, we have had just over 50% of the cohort attend but we know this will rise as parents understand we have a safe environment for their children and our staff. The plans we have put in place to keep everyone safe, have worked well and we keep these under constant review. The children have been wonderful, they are so happy to be back and have settled back in to school incredibly well.

I know the frustration for parents who want to send their children back to school in other primary year groups, and we are working on a plan as to how we might achieve this in the next few weeks with all the distancing measures in place. We want all our primary children to have some time in school before the summer so they can meet their new class teacher and feel they have had contact with school before September.
Charlton, Ercall Wood and HLC Secondary are all open to Y10 on Monday, on a rota system, as we are only allowed to have 25% of the year group in school at any one time. The response we have had, as we have contacted every student and their parents, has been really positive. We will be able to support Y10 students in their GCSE subjects over the last few weeks of term, and prepare them for Y11. Home Learning will continue for Y7, Y8 and Y9 as there are no plans, from the Government, to bring any more secondary children into school this term.

Queensway will continue to provide part-time places in school and Home Learning for all students for the remainder of this term, and it is encouraging to see more students attending our special school.

Our planning is now turning to September and it seems, at this stage, that the Government wants schools to be back to normal and so do we! We all miss the children and the staff are delighted they are back in the classroom, even with reduced numbers and controls in place. We will keep you informed, when we know, as the plan for schools emerges over the next few weeks.

Looking at all the daily data it seems that the lockdown, social distancing and everything else we have had to do is working. The cases and infection rates are falling, we all want that to continue so we get back to normal soon, so we have to keep going and believe that the worst is behind us.

My best wishes to you and your family.
Yours sincerely,
Dr. Gill Eatough
CEO LCT