Charlton School

Update 18.03.20.

Dear Parents,

I just wanted to continue to update you on the next steps we are taking. Unfortunately, we are still experiencing staffing shortages with further staff self-isolating because of the illness of a family member, childcare issues, or because they have an underlying medical condition which places them in a highly vulnerable position.

We are continuing to have more children and students absent, as parents decide to self-isolate due to either COVID -19 symptoms or the risk to a vulnerable family member.

We have taken the decision this afternoon to close tomorrow (19.03.20) to ALL YEAR 8 STUDENTS, AS WELL AS YEAR 9 STUDENTS AT CHARLTON, ERCALL WOOD ACADEMY AND HLC SECONDARY for the remainder of this week, and we will decide on Friday the position for next week. As I said in my previous communications, we want to keep Y11 students in school for as long as possible. At this stage we believe we can remain open to all other year groups, however we are constantly reviewing that position and will give you as much warning as possible from late afternoon/early evening the day before. This information will be sent out by email/social media and our school websites so please check these regularly.

Both our Primary Schools, HLC Primary and Wrekin View Primary, will remain open tomorrow for all classes.

Queensway School will be making individual decisions as they have a very different school population and will contact parents directly.

At Charlton we have organised work for those students in Year 8 and 9 through the use of the Doddle Platform, in addition we have created the Study Zone (www.charlton.uk.com/quick-links/students/study-zone), available through the school website for students to gain access to a range of materials.  For those students self-isolating at home there are also a range of materials available through the outlined websites for each curriculum area at the following link, www.charlton.uk.com/media/12335/useful-educational-websites-2020.pdf this document has been attached with this letter.

As you are aware, the Government is updating its guidance daily and we are responding to this, the link for this information is https://www.gov.uk/coronavirus.  A summary of the latest stay at home guidance is below:

Symptoms

The most common symptoms of coronavirus (COVID-19) are recent onset of:

• new continuous cough and/or
• high temperature

Main messages

• If you live with others and you are the first in the household to have symptoms of coronavirus, then you must stay at home for 7 days, but all other household members who remain well must stay at home and not leave the house for 14 days. The 14-day period starts from the day when the first person in the house became ill. See explanatory diagram
• For anyone else in the household who starts displaying symptoms, they need to stay at home for 7 days from when the symptoms appeared, regardless of what day they are on in the original 14 day isolation period.
• It is likely that people living within a household will infect each other or be infected already. Staying at home for 14 days will greatly reduce the overall amount of infection the household could pass on to others in the community.

Thank you once again for your continued support, in unprecedented circumstances for us all. I hope your family is well and we will continue to do the utmost to support our community across the Trust.

I will keep you updated as the week progresses.

Yours sincerely,

Dr. Gill Eatough

CEO LCT