URGENT RESPONSE REQUIRED REGARDING SCHOOL CLOSURES
- By markward
- 20 March, 2020
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20 March 09:00
URGENT RESPONSE REQUIRED REGARDING SCHOOL CLOSURES
Dear Parents and carers,
As you will be aware, schools, colleges and childcare settings will close today, for the foreseeable future to the majority of pupils. At Waterside this causes us great sadness, but we understand that it is a necessary and vital step in order to ensure we limit the spread of the virus and protect the Waterside community, by limiting social contact.
Despite this, schools will remain open to a small proportion of children, should parents have no other option for childcare and we have been awaiting a list from the government as to who these might be.
We are now able to share this list with parents. Please see below:
Health and social care
This includes but is not limited to doctors, nurses, midwives, paramedics, social workers, care workers, and other frontline health and social care staff including volunteers; the support and specialist staff required to maintain the UK’s health and social care sector; those working as part of the health and social care supply chain, including producers and distributers of medicines and medical and personal protective equipment.
Education and childcare
This includes nursery and teaching staff, social workers and those specialist education professionals who must remain active during the COVID-19 response to deliver this approach.
Key public services
This includes those essential to the running of the justice system, religious staff, charities and workers delivering key frontline services, those responsible for the management of the deceased, and journalists and broadcasters who are providing public service broadcasting.
Local and national government
This only includes those administrative occupations essential to the effective delivery of the COVID-19 response or delivering essential public services such as the payment of benefits, including in government agencies and arms length bodies.
Food and other necessary goods
This includes those involved in food production, processing, distribution, sale and delivery as well as those essential to the provision of other key goods (for example hygienic and veterinary medicines).
Public safety and national security
This includes police and support staff, Ministry of Defence civilians, contractor and armed forces personnel (those critical to the delivery of key defence and national security outputs and essential to the response to the COVID-19 pandemic), fire and rescue service employees (including support staff), National Crime Agency staff, those maintaining border security, prison and probation staff and other national security roles, including those overseas.
Transport
This includes those who will keep the air, water, road and rail passenger and freight transport modes operating during the COVID-19 response, including those working on transport systems through which supply chains pass.
Utilities, communication and financial services
This includes staff needed for essential financial services provision (including but not limited to workers in banks, building societies and financial market infrastructure), the oil, gas, electricity and water sectors (including sewerage), information technology and data infrastructure sector and primary industry supplies to continue during the COVID-19 response, as well as key staff working in the civil nuclear, chemicals, telecommunications (including but not limited to network operations, field engineering, call centre staff, IT and data infrastructure, 999 and 111 critical services), postal services and delivery, payments providers and waste disposal sectors.
The government does however remind parents that:
……….the most recent scientific advice on how to further limit the spread of COVID-19 is clear. If children can stay safely at home, they should, to limit the chance of the virus spreading.
That is why the government has asked parents to keep their children at home, wherever possible, and asked schools to remain open only for those children who absolutely need to attend.
It is important to underline that schools, colleges and other educational establishments remain safe places for children. But the fewer children making the journey to school, and the fewer children in educational settings, the lower the risk that the virus can spread and infect vulnerable individuals in wider society.
I apologise for the length of this email, but felt it important that parents had all the correct information in order to help them make the important decision as to whether their child should come in to school on Monday.
If having read the above, you believe yourself to be a ‘key worker’ and you would like your child to attend school next week, then we require some quick action.
Please either phone school on 023 80 842143 or email via ParentMail or to e.moakes@waterside.hants.sch.uk by 2pm today. This will allow me to put a skeleton staff together for Monday.
If your child is currently ill and/or in a period of self-isolation they must not return Monday, but please still inform us of your intention and of their start date. These arrangements are for the next two weeks initially.
These are challenging times, but I am immensely proud of the children and my staff, who are working tirelessly to ensure the school is able to run smoothly.
Please ensure contact has been made by 2pm.
Many thanks,
Emma Moakes
Headteacher
Update 17 March
- By markward
- 17 March, 2020
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In the Government’s Stay at Home Guidance, the following advice is clear:
If you live with others and you or one of them have symptoms of coronavirus, then all household members must stay at home and not leave the house for 14 days.
The 14-day period starts from the day when the first person in the house became ill.
It is likely that people living within a household will infect each other or be infected already.
Staying at home for 14 days will greatly reduce the overall amount of infection the household could pass on to others in the community
We ask that you check official guidance to identify your personal circumstances and make the decisions based on that guidance.
It is clear if we all take the correct steps now we can make a difference to others.
Schools have not been instructed to close. We will do all that we can to continue to provide an education for our children. However, should staff absences become unmanageable, we would look to implement class or whole school closures. This is a last resort.
This week teachers will be preparing resources to support your child learning at home, should schools be made to close.
Further updates will follow.
Coronavirus update17 March
- By markward
- 17 March, 2020
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Things are changing very rapidly here in the UK but we will kep parents informed by parent mail of any changes that may affect us as a school and a school community.
ADVICE FROM THE NHS
Stay at home if you have coronavirus symptoms
Stay at home if you have either:
- a high temperature – you feel hot to touch on your chest or back
- a new, continuous cough – this means you’ve started coughing repeatedly
Do not go to a GP surgery, pharmacy or hospital.
You do not need to contact 111 to tell them you’re staying at home.
Testing for coronavirus is not needed if you’re staying at home.
For further information see:
https://www.gov.uk/government/topical-events/coronavirus-covid-19-uk-government-response
Winning House for Summer Term
- By markward
- 16 July, 2019
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Congratulations to Water House, who were awarded the most house points over the course of the term.
All children in Water House can come to school in non-school uniform this THURSDAY as their reward.
Ofsted Inspection Report May 2019
- By lisaalderson
- 17 May, 2019
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We are delighted as a school to be able to report our latest Ofsted Inspection report. We are now officially a “GOOD” school.
Well done Waterside!
Year 1 at Hythe Pier Event Saturday 11th May
- By lisaalderson
- 13 May, 2019
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On Saturday, members of the school choir and children from our Year One class were invited to join members of Hythe Pier Heritage Association in an event to raise awareness of the pier and to spark public support for it’s preservation. Staff and parents joined the children to sing ‘The Hythe Pier Song’ to an audience of Saturday shoppers. Having sung at the entrance to the pier, we made our way singing to the top, where we sung to the public who were enjoying tea and cakes in the pier pop-up café. As well as singing, pupils from Year One had painted pictures of the pier which were displayed on the café walls. It was a fun community event and children enjoyed riding the pier train back along the pier at the end. Well done Waterside!
Social Responsibility Nominations
- By markward
- 5 April, 2019
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Thank you to all parents and staff who put forward children for this award. It was lovely to get children nominated for a wide range of reasons – from litter picking in the New Forest, to volunteering time as a ‘Mashall’ at community events, to holding cake sales to raise money for charity or for sponsored walks to also raise money for charity.
All nominated deserve recognition for being a positive driving force for our planet’s future.
Well done Ben W, Mollie H, Summer G, Josh G and Suzzanna A.
Suzzanna was the winning nomination and she gets to choose a charity to be presented with £50.00. She has chosen the Special Baby Care Unit at Southampton Hospital. The same charity she has focused her other fundraising for.
Thank you also to Hythe Rotary for giving us the opportunity to present these awards and for the financial contribution to the chosen charity.
This award will be on-going so I am sure some of those nominated will be nominated again and others will follow, who are also doing great things to help our community, local charities and our planet.
Mr Ward
Developing a love of reading for pleasure
- By markward
- 4 April, 2019
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Dear Parents and Carers
As part of our consistent drive to improve the outcomes for all our children, we have been working relentlessly on developing a broad and rich curriculum that develops children’s knowledge of the world, whilst also providing them with the life-long skills, the aspiration and the ambition to be healthy, successful, environmentally aware citizens that believe in contributing positively to society.
As a major part of that drive we have introduced children to a wide and rich range of literature within our teaching of reading. We recently carried out a survey, that all our children took part in, to help us understand the needs of our children within the focus of developing their love of reading for their own pleasure. The ideals of sustainable development cannot be ‘taught’ in isolation – the whole school community has to be involved. Parents and teachers must be seen by children to share similar values and attitudes if there is to be a real impact upon the thought and actions of the children. This is most evident when it comes to developing the reading interests in our children.
Please find attached (Click here) the results of our survey, which I hope you will find of interest. You may also be interested to read an article (‘It’s everyone’s job to encourage reading’) that was published online on Tuesday. This backs up all that we are doing here at Waterside. The article can be read by clicking on this link: https://www.tes.com/news/its-everyones-job-encourage-reading-pleasure
If you would like to find out more about what we are doing in school to develop children’s love of reading please do come and speak to me or your child’s class teacher. We can also give advise and help if you want support in developing better reading habits at home.
Thank you for your time in reading the supporting material attached and in your continued support for the school.
I hope you all have a wonderful Easter break.
Kind regards
Mark Ward
Deputy Headteacher