Charlton School

24.04.20 Update for parents

Dear Parents,

I do hope you and your families are staying well. We do know of a number of families who have very sadly lost loved ones and we send our heartfelt condolences to those families.

We are just completing another week of lockdown and it seems as if we have all managed to adapt to this way of living but we are aware how challenging it is for many of you trying to work from home and combine this with childcare and Home Learning. We just keep being sent amazing examples of work being done at home and our staff are constantly on email and phones trying to support you and your children.

This week HLC Primary, Wrekin View Primary and Queensway have prepared packs of work for you to collect or we are delivering as we recognise this is an easier way of working for you and your child rather than online when devices and Wi-Fi present difficulties. Charlton, Ercall Wood and HLC Secondary are significantly supporting online learning and this seems to be working well. Secondary staff are supporting this and helping students navigate through the work. We want to continue to stress that two hours a day Home Learning is probably sufficient around doing some family activities, some exercise and perhaps a few chores!

We continue to manage the complex Free School Meal voucher system which has been really frustrating and our admin team spend the greater part of each day dealing with the online system which continually crashes. Please keep contacting your child’s school as we deal with this, we will provide all the support we can to make sure you get your vouchers online or we print them for you.

Our schools continue to provide support for the children of key workers and those who need additional support, we have staff on rota every day and they are doing a great job working with the children.

I was informed this week, very clearly, by the Department of Education, following the media hype last weekend, that there is no date set for schools to reopen. I do not believe that any decisions have been made yet about when and how as there is a lot of progress required in the rate of infections and managing this ghastly virus. Schools will only reopen when it is safe to do, so and this will be managed very carefully.

Stay safe and, as always, stay at home, follow all the guidelines so we beat this and we can get back to normal in due course.

Yours sincerely,

Dr. Gill Eatough

CEO LCT