Updated 21 May 2020

We hope that you and your family remain safe and well.

Firstly, thank you for all the support that you have been providing at home during these difficult times – we appreciate that this may have proved challenging, but we have seen great examples of effort and work from children and families alike.

As you will be aware, the government has asked that schools plan for a reopening from 1 June. This is dependent on meeting the ‘five tests’ set out by the government and this evidence is due to be reviewed on 28 May – only if these measures are met will schools begin to reopen.

Since the date of this announcement, we have been working with colleagues across Diverse Academies Trust to establish the safest ways for a phased reopening of our academies in line with guidance from the Department for Education.

We appreciate the importance of children returning to school, but are absolutely clear that this must be done with the health and safety of all children and staff at the forefront of our decision making.

With this in mind, we plan to begin to reopen our secondary academies to a small number of year 10 and 12 students from Monday 8 June, provided all risk measures are in place. Students will be invited into school to receive additional support from teachers to support their home learning. Our initial plans are to invite small groups of year 10 students into school for a three-hour session approximately every two weeks.  Planning for year 12 is also underway.  We will be contacting the parents of children in these groups during the week commencing 1st June with more details.

In the meantime, we will continue to provide care for the children of keyworkers and children identified according to the criteria provided by the government and we are planning for these children to return to their home schools once all safety work is complete. We anticipate this will happen during the first week in June but will clarify the timings of this directly with those parents/carers.

We will contact the parents of all children prior to their return – please do not send your child into the academy until arrangements are in place.

Please note that it is your right to continue to provide home education if you do not wish to send your children back into the academy – you will not be penalised or fined should you wish to keep them at home.