Tredegarville CW Primary School

Dear Parents,

Many of you will have seen on the news in the past week that schools will start to re-open from June 29th. The summer term will be extended and will now finish for the summer holidays on July 24th. This will give children four weeks back in school.

We are busy making plans to re-open school to ensure it is a safe and welcoming place for your children. We are waiting for some more detailed guidance from Welsh Government and will then share all these plans with you. It is clear that school will not look the same as it looked before. We expect that children will attend with the same small group of children, with groups no more than ten children. Children will arrive at school and be collected at different times to reduce the number of people around the gate. Children will be in their small groups with their teacher and a teaching assistant for the day and will not mix with other groups. They will bring their own lunches and will eat with their teachers. There will be lots of time for them to play and learn with others in their group and lots of time outdoors in their group! Although school will look different, please reassure your child that the staff still love them and care for them in the exactly the same way as before and still want them to love learning and enjoy school. There will be lots of fun!

In order to keep groups of children small we think children will attend school one day a week and then access the rest of their learning online. This may not sound like much time in school but with small groups of children, we think children will get lots of learning done and coming into school will really help them with their online learning. Teachers will continue to upload online learning for children when they are not in school. Hopefully, we have now managed to support most families with internet and IT access and you are all able to do online learning at home. Children will also be able to access books, paper, pens and toys in school, which they may not have been able to access at home.

I fully understand that many of you will feel anxious about children returning to school. I want to reassure you that we will be doing everything we possibly can to make it safe for all of us. As well as only having small groups of children there will be enhanced cleaning regimes, very regular hand washing and some social distancing measures in place. We do not think it is realistic to keep very small children apart so they will play with carefully selected and very regularly cleaned resources and play outside as much as possible. All children will only be with a small group of other children. We will not be having classes together in corridors, the dining hall or main hall. In classrooms we will have far fewer tables to allow for more space between children.

Over the coming weeks we will be sharing all our plans with you as we know how important it is that you feel it is safe for children to return. Coming back to school will help children with their learning but we also know how important it is for them to spend time and  play with other children. School is likely to look very different for quite a while and we want to prepare children for this and get them ready for a different type of school in September. All the staff in school has missed you and your children a great deal and we are really looking forward to seeing you.

Please check the website regularly for updates and we will be in touch with you about which groups are starting on what date. Remember, if you have any questions or would like to contact me, my email address is: elaing@cardiff.gov.uk.

Sending you best wishes,

Mrs Laing