Dear Parents and Carers,

I think it’s important to clarify for you all the reasons that school is currently only able to offer places to children with two Key Worker Parents. Communications from school might have seemed a bit “matter of fact” this week, but this is purely because of the rapidly changing situation that school is dealing with and still so many unknowns about how school is supposed to operate. There are so many variables that the team are working on and, unfortunately, they need certain facts to be made as clear as possible with nothing getting lost in dialogue. This is why, so far, they have asked for simple responses to simple questions. I’m sorry if this hasn’t come across in the way that it was intended.

During the last lockdown school was given specific guidance on bringing children into school for education during lockdown. We haven’t received any such guidance this time from the government or from the council so we must use the last update that we were given. Meetings took place yesterday afternoon between the local councils and the department for education to try to get some clarity on what schools should be doing – we are waiting for the outcome of this meeting.

We weren’t given any advance notice of the closure of schools and we were notified by the PM’s address from Downing street at 8pm on Monday 4^th January but we had been planning for several different eventualities and school is working hard to bring their plans into action.

The last guidance that we were issued gave us specific directions on how many children can be taught in specific bubbles, how they must be physically spaced, how classrooms and ancillary areas can be used and how staff must be utilised. Basically, we can’t have more than 12 children in any single classroom.

At Adel St John we have an unusually high number of Key Worker families. We currently have more than fifty with both parents being key workers – fifty families that is, some with more than one child in school. We also have children with specific individual needs that we must accommodate in addition to the key worker families.

Bearing all of this mind, it is impossible for us to comply with our guidelines if we accept all children with a single Key Worker parent.

The idea behind closing schools is that we need to stop the spread of a highly infectious virus that has claimed 10,000’s lives in the UK alone. The safest place for all children is currently at home. This is a fact that is being recognised by some of our families with two key worker parents who feel that, for now at least, the right thing to do is to keep their children away from school.

I appreciate that this is incredibly frustrating for so many people and makes working and home schooling an incredibly difficult and, at times, incredibly stressful task. I really am sorry that we can’t do more but, the fact is that the Government is making promises that schools can’t keep. In the process it’s the school that ends up looking unhelpful and uncaring. This is not the case.

School would desperately love to help all of our wonderful families and we believe that children should be in school as much as possible. Unfortunately, this is just not possible for the large majority of our children.

It is worth noting that most of the other Primary Schools in the LS16 cluster are also only opening to families with two Key Worker parents.

Our school stands out in the area as being unusually small. It was built at a time when classrooms and ancillary areas were physically smaller and demand for school places was smaller. Other schools in the area are more modern, with larger classrooms and either two form or even three form entry. This means they have potentially three times more classrooms and three times more staff available – possibly with fewer key worker families than we have. We have had some very unhelpful comments comparing our school with others local, and this simply isn’t a fair, like-for-like comparison.

Our school has always been so well supported by our families and I ask that you continue this support and show some understanding for all our staff who are doing their very best in an incredibly challenging and stressful situation.

Stay safe,

Andy Neal

Chair of Governors