I do hope that you and your family have had a lovely Christmas break and have managed to keep well and safe. From our emails and calls, it appears that so far - so good. However, this is not the time to be complacent, so we urge you to continue following the Government guidance of Space - Face - Hands and Ventilation.

 

Today has been a big news day with the approval of the new COVID-19 vaccine and that at some point today, the Government will be announcing what they want schools to do next week.

 

To reassure you (as I am sure you would expect), we have been planning for various scenarios - so hopefully we will be able to guide you and your family before the end of the day.

 

This afternoon, I have a meeting with the Borough to look at the practicalities of testing (the Borough have been working hard with secondary school leaders on this) and will hopefully be in a position to send out to you what the plan will be by the end of today.

 

To be clear - some of the press and media coverage is slightly misleading with regards to the Armed Forces - they will NOT be attending schools to help with testing, but will be available via video conferencing to assist if schools need support with testing procedures. As you can appreciate, this leaves a huge question as to how all schools will manage to routinely test and teach when staffing may be at its limit...but hopefully, by the end of today - we will have some clear answers for you all.

 

In the meantime, can I just reinforce the current messaging from both the Government and the Borough :

• Only leave your house if you really have to
• Do not mix households
• Do not travel (even for exercise) unless its for essential work or caring duties
• Do get tested from one of the local community sites (booking link here)

Keep safe and well,

Meic and the Imperium Team