Monday 01 June 2020
Parents and carers will today receive a guidance document to provide further reassurance and information before all students return to school on Monday 8th June.
The guidance provides an overview of how schools will operate and addresses questions parents and carers may have around social distancing, hygiene, cleaning, transport and whether it is compulsory for students to attend.
Transport is a particular area of challenge as public health guidance around maintaining social distancing wherever possible means capacity will be severely limited on school buses compared to normal levels. Unless it is absolutely essential for a student to catch the bus, parents and carers are being asked to do everything possible to support their children use other methods, such as walking or cycling.
Headteachers will contact parents and carers later this week to explain any specific measures that are being put in place at their school.
Deputy Matt Fallaize, President of the Committee for Education, Sport & Culture, said:
'I hope parents and carers find the guidance produced helpful and it offers further reassurance on how schools can safely operate once all students return next Monday. We have sought to provide information and answers that will be consistent across all schools, while conscious that many issues will need to be considered at an individual school level.
'We decided that all students would return from Monday 8th June so that headteachers and their staff had this week, the first back after half term, to consider any issues relevant to their site and the way their school operates. Operational measures required to meet public health guidance will understandably be different for many of our schools. Headteachers will contact parents directly later this week to provide this detail, which will include things like any decision on uniforms, how lunch breaks will operate, changes to drop-off and pick-up and any other information parents need to be aware of in terms of how their child's school will operate.'
