Please read on for information about procedures that will apply in the event of a confirmed case or an outbreak of Covid-19 in our school community. This information has been updated for September 2021.

Please see the Remote education news item for full information about how remote education will be offered for any Saltford School children who are required to remain at home because of Covid-19.

For the latest government information and guidance for parents and carers of children attending early years settings, schools and colleges during the coronavirus pandemic, please see: 'What parents and carers need to know about early years providers, schools and colleges'. For all government information about Covid-19 please see www.gov.uk/coronavirus.

Any updates in the form of letters to parents will be posted here.

• At-a-glance operational plan summary from September 2021
• the current operational plan with details about daily routines for playtimes, lunchtimes, equipment use and communication with school
• a summary of our contingency plans for a Covid-19 outbreak
• Guidance from B&NES regarding a negative PCR test result following a positive lateral flow test result October 2021

In the case of illness, suspected or confirmed Covid-19

If your child is unwell and unable to attend school, please ensure you telephone and leave a message on the absence line before 8:45am on the first day your child will not be in school. If your child has symptoms of Covid-19, please keep them home and get them tested.

You need to inform us if a child has tested positive for Covid-19: 

• If you receive a positive test result during school hours (8am - 4pm on school days) then please telephone the school office and speak to one of the team. 01225 872185.
• If you receive a positive test result outside of school hours, please report it using this online form and Mrs Sage or one of the office team will contact you. The form is here: https://forms.office.com/Pages/ResponsePage.aspx?id=FU48tNJMtUmhKRQyRYFNOtF6I-R52W5EtxGo7hDZii5UNlNYV1lITFpSNlE0RlZGQ1YxWUxWSEg2OC4u
  

You will be asked the date your child was last in school as Test and Trace then trace close contacts in the previous 48 hours. This will help us to support track and trace to identify close contacts and ensure the class teacher is alerted that your child is self-isolating for ten days and will be in touch to set school-work - in this case we will know your child is absent for ten days and you would not need to ring in every day as noted above.

Please refer to this quick guide for parents and carers which is a helpful chart of what actions to take in different situations and how to judge when your child should return to school.

Changes to contact tracing in the new school year

One of the main changes for this new school year is that school will not be involved with contact tracing. Now NHS Test and Trace will work with the positive case to identify close contacts. From 16th August 2021, children under the age of 18 years old will no longer be required to self-isolate if they are contacted by NHS Test and Trace as a close contact of a positive COVID-19 case. Instead, Test and Trace will work with parents, carers or guardians to inform the child that they have been in close contact with a positive case and advise a PCR test is taken. 

New self-isolation rules

There is no self-isolation unless you have confirmed Covid-19; if a member of staff or a pupil is identified as a Close Contact of someone with Covid-19, they do not need to self isolate, as long as they are either under 18 / double vaccinated / do not have symptoms of Covid.

If you live with someone who develops symptoms or who tests positive, you do not need to self isolate, as long as you are either under 18 / double vaccinated / do not have symptoms of covid. This means that children do not have to stay at home if a parent or sibling has symptoms or a positive result, and staff do not need to stay at home if the people they live with have symptoms or a positive result.

In all the above cases, NHS Test and Trace will contact you to tell you that you are a Close Contact, and they will advise you to take a PCR tests as soon as possible and advise that you:

• Wear a mask in enclosed spaces (school staff, primary aged pupils not compulsory)
• Limit contact with clinically extremely vulnerable people
• Take lateral flow tests twice a week (adults and older children)

As long as you don’t develop symptoms or test positive, you should observe these measures for 10 days after your last contact with the covid case, but you may continue to attend school, even while waiting for your PCR test result. Close Contacts are people who have “mixed closely” with the person who has covid. This could mean:

• In the same class
• A friendship group at break time or lunch time
• A sports team
• An after-school club group

Contingency plan in case of a Covid outbreak

Please see this summary of our contingency plans that will be put into place in the event of a Covid-19 outbreak. It shows what the response will be to escalating numbers of Covid cases within school.

If my child usually has a free school meal

1. School plans to support children who would normally receive a benefit-related free school meal. Individual families will be contacted by the school where this is applicable.
2. Children in Reception, Year 1 and Year 2 who receive a 'universal free school meal' will unfortunately not be eligible for extra support.

If my child is self-isolating and it is difficult for me to get other children to school

1. Parents, carers and guardians are responsible for ensuring regular attendance and that includes making sure that their children can still get to school. This case is treated the same as a sibling being ill under normal circumstances.
2. If you are having difficulties, please contact the school to discuss your circumstances.
3. Work will be provided only for the child who is self-isolating. See the Remote education news item for full information. Siblings are required to attend school as normal to access their education.

Thank you

We would like thank families for their understanding and continuing support. Throughout the planning process the safety of children and adults has been our overriding concern.

All our planning has been done in conjunction with the other primary schools in our partnership and we have followed the Futura Learning Partnership's risk assessment process in doing so. Our risk assessment has been reviewed and approved by the partnership board.

During periods of self-isolation or national lockdown, it is important that children have support to continue their education while they are at home, as long as they are well enough to do so. 

For full details of our remote education offer please see the following:

• Visual overview of the whole remote learning provision PDF document
• Our commitment for remote and blended learning PDF document
• Our plan for individual, whole class or whole school remote learning provision PDF document  
• Detailed remote learning plan for 2021 – 22 PDF document
• Q&A document here for more detailed information about what parents and carers can expect from remote education if government restrictions require entire cohorts to remain at home.

Please follow the links below to find three daily lessons to support your child's learning at home. Children can then share what they do via Tapestry or Seesaw. The login details remain the same as before. Please contact us if there are any issues with this.

Microsoft Teams

Please see communications sent to parents/carers with regard to our use of Microsoft Teams for live meet ups.  Instruction document can be found here. 

Oak National Academy

Schedules by year group from the Oak National Academy

These are free online lessons across a variety of UK school curriculum subjects. Please choose the appropriate year group and then select the day of the week.

BBC TV and Bitesize online

The BBC has added curriculum-based television programming to its online offering to support families during the latest lockdown. Programming for primary aged children will be on CBBC between 9am and 12pm every weekday. The Bitesize daily lessons will also be shown on the Red Button service on TV.

Please see the following links for how to access the online BBC content:

This is a great competition to think about over the October half term. Children from Futura schools are invited to get busy in your kitchen and develop a recipe using your favourite flavours. Recipes will be featured on the school menu, and included in a new cookery book that will be published by our in-house catering company, Zest. The book should be available to buy from early December (just in time for Christmas).

We need healthy recipes for breakfast, lunch, dinner or desert. Each meal must feed 4 people and meet one of the healthy criteria:

Natural alternatives to sugar • Low salt • Reduced fat content.

All entries should be emailed to zest@wellswaymat.com by Monday 1st November with the subject ‘cookbook’. Please submit a completed entry form, available here in MS Word format and here in PDF format.

Please watch this video to find out more, bearing in mind the revised deadline date: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uwz64F8RxZQ

This year, we were pleased that the children were able to come together to celebrate the Harvest. We hope you enjoy the following videos which capture some of the spirit of our Harvest Festival 2021.

EYFS and KS1 harvest celebration

Instead of asking for food donations, we invited the infants to bring a £1 donation to school for Bath City Farm. We have longstanding links to this local charity which focuses on providing education, conserving the environment and supporting people who are facing adversity in their lives. We were pleased to send them £157 to support this good work.

In school we sang songs to celebrate the harvest and some Y2 children read harvest prayers:

To view in full screen, please go directly to YouTube: https://youtu.be/svuRIZ_n8vY

KS2 African harvest celebration

This year KS2 performed an African Harvest with songs and poems from Africa. Instead of asking for food donations, we wanted to support the Send a Cow Harvest in Africa. Please see here for more information: sendacow.org/get-involved/organisation/harvest/. There is also a video you might like to watch: youtu.be/_HXYhqclSI0. We were pleased to raise £146 for this local charity.

Here are the KS2 children performing their African themed songs and poems, as well as the traditional opening and closing hymns:

To view in full screen, please go directly to YouTube: https://youtu.be/l7amEGhG1gA

Many congratulations to Robyn in Willow class who is now the very proud owner of Ellen White’s football shirt!

Football fan Robyn travelled with her Bath City football team to watch the Lionesses, England women’s national team, play North Macedonia in Southampton in  September. England won convincingly beating the opposition 8-0 with Ellen scoring twice. At the end of the match Robyn was thrilled when Ellen responded to her request for her shirt and even signed it for her!

How exciting for you, Robyn. We hope you continue to be inspired by Ellen's sporting achievements.