January 2022 - Covid Update for return to school

4th January 2022 Dear Family Happy New Year to you. I hope that you had a restful Christmas break and were able to spend some quality time with your families. I am looking forward to starting the spring term and welcoming back all learners by Monday 10th January. As you are aware, we are staggering the start to term and are using this week to conduct our Learning Reviews and on-site lateral flow tests. Cohort 11 will return to school on Thursday 6th January after having their test on Wednesday 5th January. All other cohorts will return to school on Monday 10th January.

I am writing to update you on the latest guidance from the Department for Education. Many of the measures listed in the guidance and shared in the media are not new and are things we have already been doing at Honywood. However, these safety measures are being more widely pushed as there is now a higher risk of an outbreak of Covid-19 in schools as well as the wider community. Whilst I am sure you are all tired of the endless changes, guidance and rhetoric, I hope you will agree that it is important that we do all that we can to minimise disruption and keep our community safe. I would like to remind you that caution has served us well throughout the pandemic and as a result, we have been able to operate with minimal disruption.

We have had a high uptake of vaccination in our community which will help keep learners and staff healthy and in school. However, the main purpose of the vaccine is to reduce the risk of severe illness. Whilst it does reduce the risk of getting the virus and transmitting it, it does not stop it from happening altogether. This means that we must all continue to work together to reduce the likelihood of the virus coming into and spreading within school and the wider community as this is still very much a possibility.

There has been much talk about preparing for an inevitable hit on staff and learner absence. The truth is, as I write this, I do not know what extent staff or learner absence will be. As we have done over the past 18 months, we will continue to do all that we can to keep school open for all our learners. If our staffing levels fall below the level required to operate safely, then we may need to offer remote education for a short period to some year groups with learners in exam years prioritised for in-school provision. Hopefully, if we all take personal responsibility for following the guidance and measures announced by the government, outlined below, we will get through the weeks ahead as successfully as possible.

Testing All learners are strongly advised to take part in bi-weekly lateral flow testing, including one on-site test at the start of term. We have already communicated our plans for this with you and will be recirculating the letter sent before Christmas. The reason for on-site testing is that this helps to ensure that all learners are testing correctly and effectively before term restarts. We have really benefited from a very high uptake of testing at Honywood helping to reduce the spread of this virus in school as cases have been identified early, including those who are asymptomatic. I would like to thank our learners and parents/carers again for their support towards this programme.

We were advised that the guidance has changed around when to restart lateral flow tests after infection and we have been told that you should restart lateral flow tests as soon as you recover from Covid-19 (previous guidance said that you could stop testing for 90 days). If your child has recently recovered from Covid-19, they should still come to school for their on-site test. If they have already missed their slot by the time you read this letter, please ensure a lateral flow test is done at home before they restart school.

Face-coverings You may well have seen in the media that face-coverings are now expected to be worn in classrooms. Face-coverings have been shown to reduce the risk of transmission and so this measure is in place as the case rates are currently high. This means that non-exempt staff and learners will be expected to wear masks in the classroom, unless a 2m distance can be maintained. To aid clarity of instruction, when staff can keep approximately 2m distance from learners, they may choose to remove their mask to give instructions. There may be occasions where your child is asked to remove a face-covering to speak (for example if working with a fellow learner, or member of staff, with a hearing impairment) but in all other circumstances face-coverings should be worn in classrooms and corridors. Facecoverings do not need to be worn when food is being consumed such as when in the main hall and they do not need to be worn when outside.

Headteacher: James Saunders MBA Honywood School Westfield Drive Coggeshall Essex CO6 1PZ. Tel: 01376 561231 email: admin@honywoodschool.com Honywood Community Science School is part of the Saffron Academy Trust, a Company limited by guarantee, registered in England & Wales.

No. 7618351 Registered Office: Audley End Road, Saffron Walden, Essex CB11 4UH

There are a small number of learners who are exempted from wearing face-coverings. In a large community, it is not possible for all staff on duty to know who is exempt and so learners should expect to be reminded/asked about facecoverings.

Self-isolation changes You may also have read that isolation rules have changed. Staff and learners who test positive for Covid-19 must isolate with the standard isolation period being 10 days. Day 1 is the day AFTER symptoms developed or the day after the test was taken if the individual is asymptomatic. However, individuals may be released from self-isolation early if they have a negative lateral flow test on day 6 and day 7 with those tests being taken at least 24 hours apart. The Department for Education guidance says that in these cases, learners and staff would be able to return to school/work on day 8. It would also be the case that you could be released from self-isolation on day 9 if you had negative lateral flow test on day 7 and 8 etc. If you are unable to access tests or do not take part in testing, then you will need to isolate for the full 10 days and return to school on day 11.

Below is a useful diagram to illustrate how this works:

Close contacts You will continue to be advised by the NHS as to whether you are a close contact as schools are no longer involved in close contact tracing. Close contacts are advised to take a daily lateral flow test for 7 days.

I have said this many times before, but it remains very much the case that I am very grateful for your support. Let’s hope that 2022 offers a little more stability than 2021.

Yours sincerely

James Saunders Headteacher