Covid Useful Information
If you need urgent non-medical help please contact Children with disabilities team on: 020 7138 1272 / 020 7138 1275
If you need medical assistance please visit https://111.nhs.uk/ or dial 111
If you need urgent medical assistance, please dial 999.
Dear Parents and Carers,
I just wanted to update you on what is currently happening with regards to Greenvale and the rest of this term.
As we are a secondary school we do not need to change our current provision until after 15th June.
At the Downing Street briefing the Prime Minister confirmed that primary will begin to open from 1st June. However, the independent Sage Group have listed six reasons why they think schools should not reopen on 1st June. It’s with such conflicting advice and guidance that we are beginning to consider when and which students will return to school. The special school sector has government guidance for us that does not say which students should be returning or how many but that:
Special schools, special post-16 institutions and hospital schools should work towards welcoming back as many children and young people as can be safely catered for in their setting. They may want to prioritise attendance based on key transitions and the impact on life chances and development, and to consider creating part-time attendance rotas so that as many children as possible can benefit from attending their setting. Special settings should work with local authorities and families to ensure that decisions about attendance are informed by existing risk assessments for their children and young people, which should be kept up to date.
This gives us a clear steer that we should be led by risk assessments with you, our families and our teams who know our young people the best. As such we will make decisions that are both personalised and appropriate.
We are very clear that many of our young people are completely unable to remain socially distanced. In addition, many of our young people are unable to cough or sneeze into a tissue nor independently wash their hands. When we risk assess with you, we need you to understand that this puts our young people under greater risk and we want to take time to consider your wishes and how we can put measures in place to reduce some of this risk.
Following our risk assessment we will consider offering some students some time back in school before the end of the summer. At this point we cannot guarantee that all students who wish to will be able to return. The government guidance states;
Schools and colleges will need to ensure that they have the staffing needed to support children and young people at safe ratios.
Local authorities will also need to reinstate safe home to school transport arrangements.
We encourage the use of flexible approaches. This may include:
- part-time timetables and attendance rotas
- blended onsite and home learning
- phased returns for individuals or groups
- children and young people being offered blocks of time on-site on a rotating basis
Some young people will be offered part time places, however Lewisham transport may not be able to offer all of our young people transport to school.
I was to reassure you that we will take any decisions carefully and will not rush our risk assessments.
I would like to thank all of those families who completed our on-line survey. I noted that the vast majority of replies were expressing concern and anxiety about the potential return to school. To those families I want to offer reassurance that no family is under any obligation to return their son or daughter to school and no child or family will be in any way penalised for their absence. All families are free to choose the safest decision which will be considered as part of the risk assessment.
We will be calling you before 15th June to discuss these matters further.
Finally, on our website, we have created resources to support our students- this includes homework tasks and activities and also videos. However, it is also very important that you all look after your own wellbeing too. We have found some resources that might be useful to you as parents. Please see links to NSPCC and Anna Freud who have created some useful resources:
https://www.annafreud.org/coronavirus-support/coronavirus/
Please get in touch if you would like further support.
In the mean time I would like to thank you for your continued support during such difficult times and for keeping safe.
Kindest regards
Lynne
Lynne Haines
Head teacher.
- Shopping – Waitrose and Sainsburys are accepting DLA award letters as proof that you are a vulnerable family and allowing you to use their restricted times for the vulnerable, NHS workers etc. Some Tesco stores are also allowing it – you may need to check your local store as it isn’t all of them.
- If you call Tesco on 08009177359 and inform them that you live with a vulnerable child, you may be added tot eh vulnerable persons list. This will give you access to delivery slots 24 hours ahead of the usual release time.
- Some information from the National Autistic Society