Covid Update June 7th 2021
Tim Harkins
/ Categories: News
7th June 2021
Dear Parents/Carers,
I hope that you have enjoyed the half term holiday.
Unfortunately I need to start the term with a Covid update. We now have 3 confirmed cases of Covid-19 in our Year 9 bubble. We have just been notified by Public Health England that at least one of the positive cases was of the variant first identified in India (VOC-21APR-02 / DELTA) it’s very likely that they all are. PHE class this as a variant of concern and we have been asked to support with surge testing, so any students who we identified as close contacts of these cases last week have now been asked to undertake PCR tests. After discussions with the WSCC Public Health team today we will be temporarily reintroducing the requirement to wear a face covering around school and in the classrooms while the surge testing is taking place this week. Please can you ensure your child has a clean face covering when they come to school tomorrow morning. Any previous exemptions for face coverings will still apply.
There has been more opportunity over this half term for students and families to mix a little more freely and therefore I would strongly urge every student to take a test today before they return to school and notify us of this via Operoo. Symptoms in the recent cases have generally been quite mild. There is a new form going live today on Operoo which allows you to log two tests a week through to end of term.
Hopefully if we all increase the vigilance of testing then we can keep further cases out of the school and minimise disruption for our young people. If your child’s LFD test comes back positive please self-isolate, contact us and book a confirmatory PCR test at a local test centre. We will provide all parents with a further Covid update later this week.
Best wishes,
Jim Coupe
Principal