COVID Mitigation Risk Assessments & Outbreak Plan
Covid Management Plannning (from Sept 2021)
Updated national guidance was sent to schools over the holidays. This confirmed that we will not be expected to manage pupils in bubbles; social distancing arrangements will not be required; face coverings will not be needed; etc. As such, we are expecting to open the school with a reduction of our Covid management controls in place. We will retain some sensible measures (such as minimising visitors to the school site; ventilation; site cleaning routines; hand washing; etc.)
It seems likely however, that national case rates will increase quite rapidly once schools reopen, especially amongst school-age students who have not been vaccinated. We will consequently need to respond to Public Health advice if we experience outbreaks in our school or in the local area. This may lead to the reintroduction of the sorts of control measures that we have had in place previously. We will keep you updated if any changes need to be made. We will be putting our risk assessment and outbreak plan on the website from Monday and have attached the letter from Cheshire East regarding the start of the new term for schools. (See Files to Download below)
Face Coverings
We will not require parents to wear masks when they drop off or pick up children but of course you are welcome to do so if you would prefer. We will also not be requiring staff to wear face coverings but some may choose to continue to wear them when in communal areas or when talking with parents.
Positive Covid Cases
If we have any positive cases in school, we will no longer need to trace and isolate close contacts. This should significantly reduce the disruption to school life that we experienced last year. However, please continue to let us know if your son/daughter contracts Covid during the school term. This can be done by emailing us at head@hollinhey.cheshire.sch.uk We will then put measures in place to allow pupils in these circumstances to access their lessons online, assuming they are well enough to do so.
Please note that online access to lessons will only be possible for pupils isolating for Covid related reasons. The workload and disruption involved in managing such systems is not sustainable for other types of absence. We will also send out a letter provided by Cheshire East to inform parents of children in the class concerned that there has been a positive case.