Good afternoon,
I hope you are all continuing to keep safe and well. We have been amazed by your continuing engagement and support for the school during this difficult time. I would just like to say again that we do not have an expectation on you to have become teachers in your own home. The teachers here are well aware through trying to teach their own children at home just how difficult this is! Do not hold yourself up to anyone else's expectations-we all have our own challenges to manage at this time. Yes we love sharing the children's pictures but we are just as happy to see them being kind as to completing their maths! Just seeing their faces makes our day!
I am sure their are lots of questions after Sunday's announcement with regard to the return to school. Rest assured that we are working to ensure that we can get the children back in to school as safely and sensibly as possible. The transition for this may look a little different with staggered start and finish times, different lunch arrangements and utilising different classroom spaces, but we will inform you of all this before the expected deadline. Your children's wellbeing is our primary concern and this is what we will base all our decisions on. I am sorry I cannot give you a clearer plan as of yet but hope you can appreciate that we need time now that we have been given a little direction with regard to timescale and year groups.
We realise that more people will be returning to work over the next few weeks but will continue to follow the guidance with regard to those children we have in school.
I will be sending out a questionnaire to get a little feedback with regard to how people are feeling about the proposed timescale for return to school as through this we can further inform our decisions. I know that some of you may be anxious or confused and we will of course take all of these factors into consideration. I will send a text once this is live.
If any families are struggling financially we can refer you to the food bank for support. Please email me at headteacher@dovedale.derbyshire.sch.uk - we know that many families have been impacted upon financially and would like to help wherever possible.
We are hopeful that we will soon have something resembling normality back in the not too distant future and I feel that as a community we are in a strong position to be able to make this work positively for our children.
Keep safe.