Welcome back to St. Stephen's Autumn Term 2021

We wish you a warm welcome to our new academic year. We are delighted to be coming back together, after time for rest and relaxation. We hope that you and your children have all had a chance to recuperate.

Today our staff reflected on our mission statement - never has the time been so right to encourage and build each other up in love and learning. We all feel united as a team and ready to welcome our most important team members - the children.

Update on School Procedures

During the summer we have received new guidance from the DfE, recommending that we develop plans to return to the ‘new normal’.

As a result of this guidance, we have outlined a transition plan at the bottom of this page, that will provide you with information on how we intend to proceed with arrival, dismissal, break times and lunchtimes. Please accept our apologies that this is rather complicated for a few days - it is to allow us to monitor the changes as they happen and support children. Thank you in advance for supporting us with this.

NB., School Street Please remember that Winchester Road by the Turks Head/school gate is a local authority School Street at drop off and pick up times. You cannot drive onto the road unless you are a resident. The School Street times are: 8.00am - 9.30am and 2.00pm – 4.00pm

Dismissal Procedures

As always, safeguarding your children is our highest priority.  Therefore, please ensure that we have up to date information on who can collect your children. Unless you inform us otherwise, we will use the information provided last academic year. For the children in Year 5 and Year 6 who are allowed to walk home alone, please provide written permission in an email. Please note that if we have not received this information, we will not allow a child to go home with an unnamed contact or walk home alone.  Thank you for your support in helping us to safeguard all the children.

Break times

We will now return to  KS1 and KS2 break times. We successfully trialled this in July.  This means that Reception, Y1 and Y2 will share the playground during break times. At a separate time, Y3, Y4, Y5 and Y6 will share the playground. We have organised to have extra adults on the playground to support the transition until children have adapted to busier playgrounds.  Children will sanitise/wash their hands before coming back into the building.

Lunchtimes

Over the next few weeks, we will revert to our rolling timetable.

Assemblies

We will begin assemblies in the second week.  However, we will adapt these depending on the number of infections in our area and also restrict year groups where there has been a positive case.

The School Building

Currently, we will still not be admitting parents into the school building.  However, depending on infection rates, we are hoping to start inviting parents into school at the beginning of October.

Covid Measures

Although we are making some changes, we will be maintaining many measures to keep our community as safe as possible.  Our hygiene and ventilation routines will remain the same.  In addition, we have planned additional measures that we will implement if necessary.  This will include reinstating safety measures that we had in place last year. We will continue to monitor the situation, take guidance from the DfE and local Health. If we feel that changes are required, we will communicate this as quickly as possible.

Medicines and Medical Conditions

All children with medical conditions will need an individual healthcare plan.

If your child has a new or changed ongoing medical condition that we do not know about, please complete the form below. If you have already provided an IHP and nothing has changed, and if you are happy for your previous IHP to be used this year, you do not need to fill it in again.

Please hand any medicines, asthma pumps and epipens to your class teacher tomorrow. Please remember that we cannot admit children if we do not have medicines that are required to keep your child safe.

Please note that if your child has to take any short-term medication e.g. antibiotics, you will be required to send in a parental agreement to administer medicine form.

Curriculum Information

Please remember that Curriculum Meetings will be held in the next couple of weeks.  These will be online.  During the meeting you will find out information about your child’s curriculum and other important information about learning e.g. homework, PE days

Wednesday 8th September: Year 1-  6pm, Year 3-  6.30pm, Year 5- 7pm
Wednesday 15th September: Year R-  6pm, Year 2- 6.30pm, Year 4-  7.00pm, Year 6- 7.30pm
Communication

If you wish to speak with your child’s teaching team, please email the following addresses and we will arrange phone calls, if necessary:

• reception@st-stephens.richmond.sch.uk
• year1@st-stephens.richmond.sch.uk
• year2@st-stephens.richmond.sch.uk
• year3@st-stephens.richmond.sch.uk
• year4@st-stephens.richmond.sch.uk
• year5@st-stephens.richmond.sch.uk
• year6@st-stephens.richmond.sch.uk
• SENCO inclusion@st-stephens.richmond.sch.uk

If you wish to contact the office staff or Inclusion Team, please use the following email addresses: info@st-stephens.richmond.sch.uk

We look forward to seeing you tomorrow and to the exciting year ahead.

St Stephen’s Team

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