Dear Parents/Carers,
Hello again!
I am sure that all of you will have listened to this afternoon’s broadcast by our Chief Minister and Minister for Education, Sport & Culture and will have heard that part of the island’s next phase of controlling the spread of coronavirus is to shut the schools as from 3.30pm on Monday (tomorrow).
The school is therefore open as normal tomorrow but if you would prefer to keep your child at home and are able to do so, please keep them at home. We have a growing number of staff self-isolating for precautionary reasons so it is likely that the normal school timetable will be considerably altered in light of the numbers of students and staff we may have in.
From Tuesday morning the school will be closed to all students but we will still be operating with a skeleton staff for some of our more vulnerable students and for those children of keyworkers that are not able to make arrangements to keep their children at home.
We will be contacting you tomorrow if your child is considered one of our vulnerable students and will be inviting them to continue attending school if you wish them to. We will also be asking parents who are key workers, that are not able to make suitable arrangements to keep their child at home, to complete a simple survey requesting their child to continue attending school during this prolonged period of closure. Below I have included the list of those that may qualify as a key worker and I will be sharing a simple survey with you all very soon which I would ask you to complete and return straight away so we know how many students to expect on Tuesday. Please only send your children in if you are a key worker, have completed the survey and do not have any alternative arrangements.
Work Sector |
Schools – Key Workers |
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Health and social care
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This includes but is not limited to doctors, nurses, midwives, paramedics, social workers, care workers, and other frontline health and social care staff including volunteers; the support and specialist staff required to maintain the Island’s health and social care sector; those working as part of the health and social care supply chain, including producers and distributers of medicines and medical and personal protective equipment. |
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Education and childcare
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This includes childcare, support and teaching staff, social workers and those specialist education professionals who must remain active during the COVID-19 response to deliver this approach. |
Key public services |
This includes those essential to the running of the justice system, religious staff, charities and workers delivering key frontline services, those responsible for the management of the deceased, and journalists and broadcasters who are providing public service broadcasting. |
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Local and national government
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This only includes those administrative occupations essential to the effective delivery of the COVID-19 response, or delivering essential public services, such as the payment of benefits, including in government agencies and arm’s length bodies. |
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Food and other necessary goods
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This includes those involved in food production, processing, distribution, sale and delivery, as well as those essential to the provision of other key goods (for example hygienic and veterinary medicines). |
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Public safety and national security
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This includes police and support staff, contractor and (those critical to the delivery of key defence and national security outputs and essential to the response to the COVID-19 pandemic), fire and rescue service employees (including support staff), those maintaining border security, prison and probation staff. |
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Transport
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This includes those who will keep the air, water, road and freight transport modes operating during the COVID-19 response, including those working on transport systems through which supply chains pass. |
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Utilities, communication and financial services
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This includes staff needed for essential financial services provision (including but not limited to workers in banks, building societies and financial market infrastructure), the oil, gas, electricity and water sectors (including sewerage), information technology and data infrastructure sector and primary industry supplies to continue during the COVID-19 response, as well as key staff working in the telecommunications sector (including but not limited to network operations, field engineering, call centre staff, IT and data infrastructure, 999 and 111 critical services), postal services and delivery, payments providers and waste disposal sectors.
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General Guidance |
If workers think they fall within the critical categories above, they should confirm with their employer that, based on their business continuity arrangements, their specific role is necessary for the continuation of this essential public service. |
In the meantime, please do get in touch with me if you have any queries. I will be in touch again soon to share information with you on how we intend on helping students with home/remote learning and the important part you as parents or carers have in making this successful.
All of you take care of each other, stick to the guidelines of basic hygiene, social distancing and self-isolation where necessary. As a community we will get through this together.
Kindest Regards,
Mr. Coole