IMPORTANT: All parents must complete this questionnaire as soon as possible to help us plan for the school closure

Dear Parents/Carers,

Re: Coronavirus update – school closure to most pupils

Following on from my last update, I’m now writing to let you know that we have now been instructed to close the school to almost all children after this Friday at 3.15pm until further notice. Unfortunately, we are unable to offer after school club on Friday due to staffing constraints and tomorrow's Y6 booster club will not take place. However, breakfast club is open from 7.30am.

As advised by the government, we will do all we can to stay open for the children of key workers (e.g. NHS staff, police, others in frontline services) and children with certain needs. We’ll be in touch again as soon as we are sure who this does apply to.

We are waiting for the government to publish more information on what this means, but it would help us in the meantime if you could let us know some important information by completing this online questionnaire as soon as possible which will help us plan accordingly.

All other children will need to stay at home, so we ask that you do not send your child into school from Monday onwards.

Please note that this is a national closure – as you may have heard in the news – so while it is a challenging situation, we are not alone. We’ll re-open fully as soon as we can and will let you know when this is by sending emails, texts and updating the school Twitter feed.

What we’ll continue doing while your child is at home

Your child’s learning is of course important to us, so we’ll continue to help your child to learn.

We have set up an 'online learning' page on the school's curriculum website which will be regularly updated. The key information about tasks to be completed at home and how to access Showbie (an online service for children) in included.

We would like children to complete the daily/weekly tasks set but we do understand that it can be difficult for families to support children with their learning at home.

If you do need to contact the school, you can email office@parkfield.rochdale.sch.uk or for any IT based questions, Mr Haughton will be able to reply using his email shaughton@parkfield.rochdale.sch.uk. We may not reply immediately, but we will do our best to reply as quickly as possible.

What we won’t be able to go ahead with

Due to the closures, all school trips have been cancelled but please be patient as the office staff will be working on reimbursing yourselves over the coming weeks.

The government have also announced that all tests will be cancelled. This means the following assessments planned between April and July 2020 are cancelled:

• end of key stage 1 and key stage 2 assessments (including tests and teacher assessment)
• phonics screening check
• Y4 multiplication tables check

We have been told that we do not need to complete any further activities to prepare for these assessments and that Primary school performance measures will not be published for the 2019/20 academic year.

This is as much as we know right now and we appreciate your continued patience with as we deal with this ever-changing situation. We understand that this latest news will have an impact on you and your family and it’s far from ideal, but we’ll continue to keep in touch with any updates as the situation develops.

If you want to get in touch to share any concerns, please don’t hesitate to contact us via email at office@parkfield.rochdale.sch.uk

And remember: if you or your child feels ill and you want to know what to do next, please use NHS 111 online.

Thank you again for your continued support, and we will be in touch with more information when we can.

Regards,

Mr Kemp and Mrs Whalen

Headteacher and Deputy Headteacher