Update on Covid Measures in School
Dear Parents and Carers,
Welcome back to Term 4! I hope you have had a relaxing break and enjoyed the glimpse of spring sunshine over the weekend.
As I am sure you will be aware, during the half-term break all remaining legal Covid restrictions in England were removed and I would like to update you on the ongoing Covid arrangements still in place at Uphill Village Academy.
If your child develops symptoms, they should stay at home and you should book them a PCR test to confirm whether they have Covid-19. Symptoms for both adults and children are still defined by the government guidance as:
- a high temperature
- a new, continuous cough – this means coughing a lot, for more than an hour, or 3 or more coughing episodes in 24 hours
- a loss or change to sense of smell or taste – this means they cannot smell or taste anything, or things smell or taste different to normal
If your child tests positive for Covid-19, they should stay at home and avoid contact with other people for a minimum of 5 days. They may take an LFD test from 5 days after symptoms started (or the day their test was taken if they did not have symptoms) followed by another LFD test the next day. If both these test results are negative, they should return to school, as long as they feel well enough to do so and do not have a temperature. If the day 5 test result is positive, they should continue to take daily LFD tests until they receive 2 consecutive negative test results.
I am confident in most cases, parents and carers will agree their child should not attend school if they have the key symptoms of COVID-19. In circumstances where we are aware of a child attending school who has a confirmed or suspected case of COVID-19, we can take the decision to refuse the child if, in our reasonable judgement, it is necessary to protect other pupils and staff from possible infection with COVID-19.
From today (Monday) face coverings are no longer advised for pupils, staff and visitors in classrooms or communal areas. This means adults will no longer need to wear them around school or during drop off/pick up times. If parents/carers still wish to do so, then of course this is your choice.
Several of our existing mitigations will remain in place within school, including:
- We encourage frequent and thorough hand washing and the ‘catch it, kill it, bin it’ approach.
- We will keep classrooms well ventilated, which may occasionally mean children will be invited to wear their coats indoors.
- We will use CO2 monitors in classrooms to identify where ventilation needs to be improved.
- We will continue enhanced cleaning routines.
- We will continue to request anyone showing symptoms to remain at home or to be collected if symptoms develop.
- In the event of an outbreak within school, we will continue to liaise with our local health team or director of public health which may result in additional measures being temporarily re-introduced.
Further guidance can be found here:
We will review these guidelines at the end of March in line with the Government’s intention to stop free testing on 1 April and I will update you again.
Yours faithfully,
Samantha Hodder
Principal
