Introduction

We’ve never experienced a year like 2020, when the Covid 19 pandemic has impacted so greatly on all of our lives. Sadly, we know that it has already cast a long shadow on some of our own Lakelands families, and we’re also aware that the risk of infection has still not been completely removed.

For this reason, we’ve been working tirelessly throughout the summer so that we can welcome our pupils into their school this September with real confidence and positivity. Things may look and feel a bit different, but it’s still Lakelands!

We know that all of our young people will require our support as they transition back into school, and that some will need particular help to re-adjust, for a variety of reasons. Please be assured, the Lakelands team is geared up and ready to look after all members of the community, so that we can get back to on-site learning, in a safe, Covid secure environment. 

I hope that the details below will provide answers to some of the questions you will have. Where you have specific queries that are not answered here, please contact admin@lakelandsacademy.org.uk or contact school on 01691 622543.

If your child shows symptoms of Covid 19

For the safety of all, if your child is showing any signs of coronavirus (COVID-19), even if they are only mild, they should not be sent to school and you should engage with the NHS Track and Trace process. You must arrange for your child to get a test and inform the school of the results of that test:

https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/coronavirus-covid-19/testing-and-tracing/get-a-test-to-check-if-you-have-coronavirus/

Your household will need to self-isolate for 14 days, unless the test result is negative, in which case if your child feels well and no longer has symptoms, they can return to school and members of the household can stop isolating.

Any pupils who feel unwell and begin to show symptoms at school will be isolated in a ventilated room and home will be contacted to arrange collection of the child and siblings (you should also arrange to collect any other children you have at another school.) Therefore, it is essential that we have up to date contact information on our system. If you have recently changed your telephone number or email address please inform us immediately by contacting admin@lakelandsacademy.org.uk or ringing 01691 622543.

Please note: If anyone in your house develops any symptoms of coronavirus (COVID-19) you should not send your child into school - all of the household should self-isolate. You should get a test; booking online through the ‘NHS testing and tracing for coronavirus website’, or ordering by telephone via NHS 119

New Term Dates and Access to the site.

Years 7, 10 and 11 will return to school on Thursday September 3^rd.

All five year groups will attend on Friday September 4^th and from then on.

The phased start is to allow us time to communicate effectively with all pupils the different ways of working, procedures and control measures they will experience.

All pupils should be on site by 8:50am.

There will be no access to school via the top gate for anyone, until further notice, so all students will need to enter from the bottom of the drive via the main gate. Duty staff will be there to direct pupils to their year group gathering locations, particularly new Year 7s who will not be sure where to go on their first day. If you are a parent of a new Year 7, please tell them not to worry – we will make sure they are looked after when they arrive! 

Please note, unfortunately, we can no longer allow parents to drive onto site in the morning or at the end of the school day.

Transport

As set out in government guidance, pupils will travel to school in their bus ‘bubble’ and  will join their year group ‘bubble’ upon arrival at school. On designated school buses, students may be given a specific seat to sit in during each journey to and from school, and we ask you to explain to your child that they will need to cooperate with this. To minimise the risk of infection, pupils will be required to use hand sanitiser when boarding and disembarking from the bus. They will also need to wear a face covering throughout the journey. Parents / Carers are responsible for providing face coverings, but the bus driver will provide and issue the hand sanitiser.

More comprehensive information regarding transport is available here, and on the academy website:- Click Here

NB All pupils who come to school on buses must wear masks – whether on public service buses, or exclusive Lakelands transport. On arrival at school, these must immediately be stored in a sealable plastic bag, or disposed of in the pedal bins which are located around the site.

The end of the day

There will be a slightly staggered end to the school day.

At 3:20pm, Year 11 will be escorted to buses and to the bottom of the drive. Those who walk home will be able to leave then. At 3:25pm, years 9 and 10 will be escorted to buses and finally at 3:30pm, Years 7 and 8 will join them. This is to help different year groups keep separate as they put their masks on and board their buses, in ‘bubble’ order, for the journey home.

Please note, pupils who walk home will not be allowed to wait on site for friends in different year groups.

Masks in school

Pupils will be allowed to wear face masks in school if they wish to. However, the guidance is that pupils must not wear the same mask for travelling as they wear in school. Any mask which has been worn on the bus and is removed must immediately be stored in a sealable plastic bag, to be used later on the return journey, or disposed of.

There may be exceptional circumstances where staff will request that masks are not worn in their lessons, but these will be extremely rare, and for particular reasons.

Where staff ask pupils to remove masks at the start of the lesson, the expectation will be that pupils do so, and store their mask in a sealable plastic bag. They may put the mask back on as they leave the classroom.

It will be advisable for all pupils to have clear plastic bags and spare masks with them each day. Pupils who do not wish to wear a mask in school will not have to, unless guidance changes.

Some staff will be choosing to wear masks, and a few may wear visors.

Curriculum delivery contingency plans

A home-learning remote education contingency plan will be put in place by each faculty which can be activated if we need to send a year group home, or close the school for a period of time because of a Covid outbreak.

Resources, marking and equipment.

Students will continue to use exercise books in class to complete tasks/notes. These will not be taken in by staff.  A central point or desk placed at a safe distance will be used for staff handing out resources.  The resources for each pupil will be placed on the desk and the pupil called up to collect, each person maintaining safe distancing.

Where resources need to be used by different year groups (e.g. in Science) they will be sanitised and left for 48 hours (72 hours if plastic) before they are used with another bubble. Government advice is that resources can be shared between classes within the same bubble/year group.

Assessments/exam questions will be done on paper and left for 72 hours before marking to avoid the need for teachers to be collecting in exercise books.

Students should have their own equipment including their own whiteboard. Whiteboards have been purchased for all pupils, so they will have their own. These will be distributed by form tutors. No student should be lending equipment to, or borrowing equipment from, another.

Student equipment list

To reduce the sharing of equipment and to ensure your child has the essentials, we ask that parents/ carers make sure their children have the following items with them every day from September:

• Face coverings and sealable plastic bags (for mask storage during the day)
• Pens x 2 (different colours, one black, one green)
• Pencil x 2
• Whiteboard pen
• Ruler (15cm)
• Highlighters x 2 (different colours)
• Eraser
• Glue Stick
• Compass
• 180 Degree Protractor
• Own Calculator (Preferably a Casio Scientific)
• Own full bottle of water each day
• Whiteboard (we are providing one per pupil at the start of term)
• Hand Sanitiser, Tissues (recommended but not compulsory)

Lockers

Unfortunately, government guidance is that lockers must not be used at the moment, so pupils will need to make sure that they have everything they need with them each day. Please encourage them to take out of their bags the night before, items they will not need next day, so that they aren’t overburdened as they move around school.

PE kit

On a day when pupils have PE, they should wear their PE kit to school, but bring uniform items in their bag. This is designed to avoid the need for them to change for PE lessons, in crowded changing rooms. Where possible, after a lesson, pupils will stay in PE kit for the rest of the day, but if they have been rained on, got muddy, or got into any other state where wearing kit for the rest of the day would make them uncomfortable, they will be allowed to change into the ‘back up’ uniform that they have brought with them to school.

Food and Drink

Food and drink will not be sold at breaktime. We will be encouraging as many children as possible to bring break time snacks and packed lunches to school. Food will only be provided by the academy at lunchtime, and of course, the sharing, by pupils, of food and drink is prohibited. Our advice is for all students to bring their own refillable water bottle to school.  Pupils will not be allowed to use water fountains or drink from taps.

You will have already received a separate Parentmail about lunch arrangements and payment for school lunches, which describes the systems we will be operating, in detail.

ParentPay

All payments for school meals will need to be done online as access to the machines in school and payment in cash will not be permitted.

Please make sure that you are able to transfer money onto your child’s account before they return in September. Should you have any issues with this, please contact admin@lakelandsacademy.org.uk

If your child is starting in year 7, you can still put money on their account. They will be joined into the system on their first day in school, so will be able to access the funds you’ve added, from day 1.

If your child usually receives Free School Meals their details will have been loaded into the system ready. If you think you may be eligible or would like more information about this then please contact admin@lakelandsacademy.org.uk

Risk Assessment

The updated version of our full Risk Assessment will be available to view on our website during the week commencing the 31st of August. This comprehensive document details the risk mitigation strategies which are being implemented across the academy.

Hygiene and Cleaning.

Every classroom will have a pedal bin with sanitiser and tissues available in line with the ‘Catch it – Bin it – Kill it’ protocol. Pupils will be required to sanitise their hands as they enter and leave every class. Three additional handwashing stations have been created around the site.  Pupils in all year groups will be made to wash their hands on arrival at school, before their first lesson, and on a supervised rota basis at lunchtime.  We have recruited new staff and increased our daytime cleaning capacity, and one of the team’s tasks will be to make sure that sanitiser stations and stocks of paper towels are replenished, and that the waste bins are emptied frequently. All toilets will be cleaned hourly, as will all commonly used areas (e.g. reception). If children wish to bring their own hand sanitiser, that will be absolutely fine, as long as they store and use it responsibly.

Uniform

All pupils are expected to wear the full school uniform from September. Government guidance states ‘Uniforms do not need to be cleaned any more often than usual, nor do they need to be cleaned using methods which are different from normal’.

Please make sure that all items brought into school are labelled with your child’s name so that we can return any lost items to them quickly and easily.

I strongly recommend that pupils bring a coat and/or umbrella to school each day, as they will be using designated routes outside the buildings, to move round the school between lessons (to avoid contact between different ‘bubbles’.)

We are required to achieve maximum ventilation in all classrooms, so doors and windows will be open. If and when we need to allow pupils to wear coats in lessons to keep warm, we will do so.

Attendance

The government has made it very clear that it will be compulsory for all children to return to school in September, to minimise the longer-term impact of the pandemic on their education, wellbeing and wider development.

Therefore, school attendance will be mandatory for all from the beginning of the autumn term. The usual rules on school attendance will apply. It will be the parents/carers duty to ensure their child regularly attends school and our duty to record and report attendance, and to follow up absence (supported, as usual, by the Local Authority EWO service.)

If your child displays Covid symptoms, you will need to arrange for them to be tested as soon as possible, and should keep them off school until you receive the result. Please inform school if you suspect your child may have Covid, and inform school as soon as you receive the test results (whether positive or negative.)  If the test is negative, you must send your child back to school if they feel well and no longer have symptoms. If the test is positive, then you must keep your child isolated for 7 days from the day they showed the first symptoms, and the rest of your household must self-isolate for 14 days in accordance with the government guidance.

If you are concerned about your child returning to school, please contact the Local Authority Helpline:

   Support will be available from:

17th august until 2nd September 2020

Monday to Friday 9am to 5pm

     03456789008    

Behaviour

To manage the complex Covid arrangements which have been put in place to support the health of everyone, we are all going to have to demonstrate the teamwork that we’re known for, all day, every day. Co-operation, mutual respect and positive behaviour will all be vital, perhaps as never before. We will explain all the new systems and procedures to our pupils, and will remind them that though some of them may seem bizarre, unnecessary or frustrating, they are necessary if we are to comply with government guidelines and open the school successfully and safely.

There will be frequent reminders from staff, on posters and on the information screens around school, so pupils remember why our ‘new normal’ is so important, for all of our sakes.

At the start of term, I will be explaining to each year group how the 4 Lakelands ‘non negotiables’ (that we should all be SMART, SAFE, RESPONSIBLE, KIND) will apply in the world of Covid. Our young people will be told that their behaviour will be key to the success of the school year ahead, and that the very highest standards will be expected of them.

The current behaviour policy addendum is being uploaded to the school website this week. (Please Click Here) Please discuss it with your son/daughter, so they arrive at school with a full understanding of the behaviour we expect, and they understand why their good natured co-operation will be so important.

Pastoral care and support

Lakelands Academy prides itself on its care and support for the young people it serves, and staff are keen and ready to support them as they make the transition back into school. Some will be delighted to be back with their peers, others will have anxiety about being away from home again. Older pupils will be concerned about the exams they are due to have in 2021, and work they may need to catch up on. Some pupils will have experienced difficulties or challenges during lockdown, and may need to talk these through with staff, or access support from partner services.

Whatever the needs are, form tutors, teachers, TAs, Assistant Heads of Year, Faculty Leaders, Heads of Year, school counsellor, leadership team members – in fact, all staff, are ready to provide the time and attention that is needed to make the return to school as easy and positive as it can be for our children.

If you are aware, or become aware, that your son/daughter is struggling, please do not hesitate to get in touch.

Meetings on site

Face to face meetings will need to be by prior appointment only. If you wish to arrange to speak to a member of staff, please call the main school telephone number 01691 622543 or email admin@lakelandsacademy.org.uk  to make an appointment. Alternatively, meetings can be done ‘virtually’ using Teams or Zoom, or telephone appointments can be made.

Further information

For further guidance please refer to the latest government guidance:-

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/what-parents-and-carers-need-to-know-about-early-years-providers-schools-and-colleges-during-the-coronavirus-covid-19-outbreak/what-parents-and-carers-need-to-know-about-early-years-providers-schools-and-colleges-in-the-autumn-term