Covid-19 Updates Page - Latest Information
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Covid-19 - Latest Updates for Parents
On this page, we will update you with key information relating to the school and Covid-19, so that you always have the latest details in one place.
Update: Tuesday 29th September
Dear parents and carers,
As you may have heard from your daughters, a Year 10 pupil has had a positive test result for Covid-19. Thankfully, coronavirus is usually a mild illness in children and we are expecting the pupil to make a full recovery very quickly.
However, we are of course treating the situation with a great deal of care and are liaising closely with Public Health England (PHE) to ensure we are responding appropriately.
Therefore, and in line with PHE advice, all 23 girls who have come into close contact with the pupil have been sent home for the next 14 days. This is a purely precautionary measure that will help to keep the school and wider community safe. Our cleaning regime includes a nightly deep clean, and this took place as normal yesterday evening in order to ensure the building is thoroughly sanitised.
The pupils now isolating at home will be taught online so they do not miss out on their learning. Our bubbles are strictly enforced and we are confident that these are the only pupils in the school that have come into close contact with the confirmed case. Therefore, all other well pupils must continue to come to school.
As always, the whole community should be vigilant about social distancing and hygiene. We are very grateful to parents for everything you have already done to ensure that pupils respect the many new rules and processes put in place. Equally, we want pupils to remain calm, which is essential to their ongoing wellbeing, happiness and ability to learn: please continue to help to support us with this at home.
It is always a good idea to refresh your memory of coronavirus symptoms and what to do if you are concerned. The national advice can be found lower down on this page.
Gillian Hodgson, Acting Principal
National Guidance on Coronavirus
Symptoms of coronavirus
The most common symptoms of coronavirus (COVID-19) are recent onset of:
- new continuous cough and/or
- high temperature
- a loss of, or change in, normal sense of taste or smell (anosmia)
For most people, coronavirus (COVID-19) will be a mild illness.
What to do if someone in your household develops symptoms of COVID-19
If someone in your household develops symptoms of COVID-19, they should remain at home for at least 10 days from the date when their symptoms appeared.
All other household members who remain well must stay at home and not leave the house for 14 days.
The 14-day period starts from the day when the first person in the house became ill.
Household members should not go to work, school or public areas and exercise should be taken within the home.
Household members staying at home for 14 days will greatly reduce the overall amount of infection the household could pass on to others in the community.
If you are able, move any vulnerable individuals (such as the elderly and those with underlying health conditions) out of your home, to stay with friends or family for the duration of the home isolation period.
If your child or anyone in the household does develop symptoms, you can seek advice from NHS 111 at: https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/coronavirus-covid-19/symptoms/ or by phoning 111.
How to stop COVID-19 spreading
There are things you can do to help reduce the risk of you and anyone you live with getting ill with COVID-19. Do:
- wash your hands with soap and water often – do this for at least 20 seconds
- use hand sanitiser gel if soap and water are not available
- wash your hands as soon as you get home
- cover your mouth and nose with a tissue or your sleeve (not your hands) when you cough or sneeze
- put used tissues in the bin immediately and wash your hands afterwards
Government guidance
The government has now published its final guidance on the wider re-opening of schools. You can read the latest government guidence HERE.
Face coverings
Southwark is not, yet, identified as an area of concern for transmission of Covid-19 and therefore the use of face coverings is not required in corridors within the academy. They are mandatory on public transport and students must wear them if they are using public transport. Our staff will not be allowing students onto public buses until they have their masks on. With cases rising across the country we would like students to be ready in case we are asked to make the wearing of masks compulsory in corridors. As such, we are asking that all girls ensure that they have a clean face covering in a sealable plastic bag (zip lock sandwich bag is fine). The face covering should have no brand logos or offensive symbols on them.
Staff training day
All schools are required to hold 5 staff training days across the Academy year. The academy is closed on Friday 2nd October for one of our training days. We planned this training day many months ago when the calendar was published and we could not have foreseen the long term impact of coronavirus. The training day does however come at the perfect time where we can see the trajectory of the effects of colder weather on transmission. We will be using the day to further improve our work to ensure that we have the best possible curriculum and support mechanisms in place to ensure students in school or being taught virtually have the same outstanding experience and outcomes at Harris Academy Bermondsey.
Timings of the academy day
Your daughter’s have been amazingly well organised at washing their hands on entry to school and getting to their lessons. This means we are able to bring Year 10 and 11 girls into the academy a little earlier than we had scheduled. In this time they will get access to an even more extensive careers and personal development curriculum to help them with their development and progress beyond school. All of your daughters in these year groups are aware of this change and have been attending at the new earlier time.
|
|
Year 7 |
Year 8 |
Year 9 |
Year 10 |
Year 11 |
Post 16 |
|
Arrive |
8.40 |
8.30 |
8.20 |
9.10 |
9.20 |
8.30 |
|
Break |
10.45 |
10.45 |
10.45 |
11.45 |
11.45 |
10.45 |
|
Lunch |
12.00 |
12.30 |
1.00 |
1.30 |
2pm |
1pm |
|
Depart |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Monday |
3pm |
2.20 |
2.30 |
3.20 |
3.30 |
3.30 |
|
Tuesday |
2.30 |
3pm |
3.30 |
4.20 |
4.30 |
4.30 |
|
Wednesday |
3pm |
2.30 |
3.30 |
4.20 |
4.30 |
4.30 |
|
Thursday |
2.30 |
3pm |
3.30 |
4.20 |
4.30 |
4.30 |
|
Friday |
2.15 |
2.20 |
2.30 |
3.20 |
3.30 |
3.30
|
What to do if someone has symptoms of COVID-19?
1. If your daughter or anyone in your household have symptoms (a temperature or a new, continuous cough, or loss of/change to their sense of taste or smell) please let the school know by emailing attendance@harrisbermondsey.org.uk. You should then keep your daughter and the rest of your household at home.
2. If your daughter were to get these symptoms in school, we would make contact with you to ensure she could get safely home. Please note that Transport for London’s guidance is that any student with symptoms and any person collecting that student should not use public transport to get home, alternative arrangements should be made.
3. Anyone with symptoms needs to self-isolate along with all of their household and get tested as soon as possible. You can find out how to get a test, and how long to isolate at nhs.uk/coronavirus
4. If the test is negative, and the person no longer has symptoms, the household can leave self-isolation and return to school.
5. If a child or a member of staff tests positive, then we would liaise with the Department for Education and the Health Protection Unit for advice on who should self-isolate for 14 days. We expect this to be students who have been in close proximity within the class bubble and will ensure that we take the most cautious approach following all of the Health Protection Unit’s advice. The households of these other children do not need to isolate, unless their child also develops symptoms
Contacting the Academy
We are working hard to ensure that our staff give your daughters an outstanding education. In order to reduce the risk of staff needing to isolate HAB staff are being vigilant about social distancing in school, on gate duties and in meetings. We are still available for you as parents and carers if you need to contact us. We can contact you by telephone, email, video call or we can set up, with prior notice, socially distanced meetings in person. We do ask you to maintain a 2m distance from our staff at all times so that we can reduce the chances of staff needing to isolate and ensure that we can keep all students in the Academy this academic year.
Best wishes
Gillian Hodgson
Acing Principal
Update: Monday 21st September
Dear Parents and Carers,
Thank you all the support you have provided in helping us to set in place the many new procedures we have introduced to keep the academy as safe as possible at this time. Pupils have been absolutely superb, adapting with ease to our bubble system and our new rules on hand-washing.
Unfortunately, a single member of staff has tested positive for coronavirus and is now at home. This is a single, isolated case that we are treating with a great deal of care. We are liaising closely with Public Health England (PHE) to ensure we are responding appropriately.
PHE has examined the situation and advised that, because no pupils have been in close contact with the individual concerned, they should continue to attend school as normal.
This is a very important time of the year for pupils as they settle into their new year groups and routines, so we are grateful for your cooperation in ensuring that all pupils who are feeling well attend school.
As always, the whole community should be vigilant about social distancing and hygiene both inside school and beyond our gates. The new ‘rule of six’ has now come into force and it is currently against the law to meet socially with friends and family you do not live with (or have formed a support bubble with) in groups of more than six.
But just as we want you to follow the school and national guidance, we want pupils to remain calm, which is essential to their ongoing wellbeing, happiness and ability to learn: please continue to help to support us with this at home.
It is always a good idea to refresh your memory of coronavirus symptoms and what to do if you are concerned. I have added below the national advice regarding this.
Yours faithfully,
Gillian Hodgson
Acting Principal
Travelling to the Academy
We have staggered the start and end times of the day to help ensure that the girls can all maintain better social distancing on their route into and home from school. We are encouraging all girls wherever possible to avoid public transport and find another way to travel to the academy.
Walking: We encourage all girls who live within a 30 minute walk to school to avoid public transport and walk
Cycling: We have provided cycle racks for the girls at the usual student entrance. Students should not use the staff cycle racks in the carpark but should instead enter through the back gate and secure their bicycle in the racks provided.
Drop off: To ensure distancing between year group bubbles and staff your daughter must enter through the back student entrance gate. Please do not enter the staff car park to drop your daughter off as she will not be able to use the main reception entrance.
Public transport: if your daughter is travelling by public transport please do ensure she knows how to wear her face covering correctly over her mouth and nose. It is now the law that children and young people aged 11 and over must wear a face covering on public transport. When she arrives at school she will be able to wash her hands thoroughly.
Electric scooters: it remains illegal to ride a privately owned electric scooter in London, we will therefore not be able to facilitate the storage of these scooters on site and they must not be brought to school
Timetable and lessons
Your daughter will already have received here new timetable. She will be studying the full range of subjects. Students in Key Stage 3 (Years 7-9) will be studying English, Mathematics, Science, Language, History, Geography, Religious Studies, Art, D&T, Drama, Music, PE and Dance. Students in Key Stage 4 (Years 10 and 11) will be studying English, Mathematics, Science, Language, either Geography or History, Religious Studies, their option subject, PE and Dance. Post 16 students will study their chosen subjects.
To ensure that we are taking the most cautious approach to creating bubbles and in line with government advice we have grouped the Year 7 – 11 students into appropriate classes which they will be taught in for the whole of their timetable. The only time they will be taught in different groups is when the Year 10 and 11 students do their option subject. In order to create these groups we have taken account of ability, special educational needs and disabilities as well as the language and humanities subject that has been chosen. This will ensure we are best placed to offer both the support and the challenge that your daughter needs.
All lessons will be taught by subject specialist teachers. Whilst your daughter will remain in her classroom she will not have the same teacher for each lesson. The teachers will move around the school to ensure that all lessons are taught by specialist staff. This does mean that your daughter will have a short break in between lessons to enable teacher transition. In the event that we do have staff illness, students will remain in their usual classroom and as far as is possible a subject specialist will teach the lesson.
Protective measures within the Academy
The academy has conducted thorough risk assessments of every area of academy life to ensure that we are taking all precautions we can to prevent the spread of Covid-19.
Face coverings: It is still not recommended that face coverings are used in classrooms and therefore face coverings will not be worn in classrooms. We have kept travel around the building to a minimum and should therefore not have large numbers of students in the corridors, we are also not in a widespread transmission area subject to local lockdown, therefore, in communal areas such as corridors and toilets we will neither encourage nor dissuade the wearing of masks.
We will continue with our primary controls of bubbles, keeping 2m distancing, cleaning and ventilation. Where someone chooses to wear a face covering in a communal area it must be worn correctly - this requires cleaning of hands before and after touching, including removing or putting them on, and the safe storage in individual, sealable plastic bags between use.
The Academy’s primary control measures are:
The bubble timetable
- Reduces movement around academy to a minimum
- Reduces exposure to a large number of people
2m distancing
- Reduces exposure of children and adults to others
- Reduces exposure of children to other children outside of their bubble
Cleaning and Ventilation
- Reduce all virus in the Academy through hand washing and cleaning
- Reduce chance of airborne virus through well ventilated areas
School uniform and equipment
Uniform update - delays in delivery. We know that due to Covid-19 there have been delays to uniform deliveries that will affect our new Year 7 girls in particular. We completely understand that some of your daughters will not be in uniform for the start of term, please do not worry, they will not be sanctioned for something that is simply out of their control. Students should wear any part of the uniform that has arrived, and where missing items exist, equivalent items worn. We would ask that plain (no-logo) tops are worn where shirts and PE tops are missing, and black trousers/skirt worn if your daughter does not have a navy skirt or pair of trousers. Where PE tops have not arrived, plain t shirts should be worn alongside plain jogging bottoms or leggings. Jumpers and school bags are in stock and are being shipped out the day after ordering. Blazers are arriving from the 7th September so it is hoped that Monday 14th September your daughter will be in school full uniform.
Students need to be in full school uniform (though see note above) from September including the blazer and school bag. The list for this is on the uniform page. The changing facilities will not be available during September so your daughter should wear Harris Academy Bermondsey PE kit to school only on the days when she has PE. A reminder that this PE kit is the HAB T-shirt, plain navy jogging bottoms, shorts or skort and the HAB fleece. Hoodies and other branded sweatshirts are not allowed and will be confiscated. If your daughter does not have the HAB fleece she may wear the school jumper. There will be no PE lesson on her first day so she should wear full HAB uniform.
Girls will need to bring their own water bottle to school each day and will not be able to share bottles with other students. Your daughter will only be able to fill her water bottle at the start of the school day and at lunch time. We will not be giving out plastic cups as these are unsuitable for carrying water around the school.
Unfortunately, we will initially be unable to offer food at break and your daughter may want to bring in some snacks to eat at break. A reminder that students are not permitted to bring in fizzy or energy drinks, multi packs/large bags of crisps and other unhealthy snacks.
Students will not be able to share equipment and will therefore need to have their own this should include a calculator which they will need to bring each day and not only when they have mathematics lessons.
ParentPay
The Academy is a cashless school and all students wishing to buy lunch will need to have their cards topped up by Parent Pay. Students will no longer be able to use the machines to add money to their cards. If you require more information on this please contact the academy on HABreception@harrisbermondsey.org.uk with the subject ParentPay.
Support for girls
In this information we have tried to set out the most important information to help you get your daughter. We know that every family has faced challenges during this time. These challenges will be ongoing for some time and so we will ensure that there is time devoted to the emotional wellbeing of your daughters.
Thank you sincerely for all of the work you have done with your daughters throughout the lockdown. We are very much looking forward to having our students back in the academy this term.
Gillian Hodgson, Acting Principal
