We think all parents/carers should have by Monday 24th but if you have not received by Wednesday 26th August then email us on A7017@taw.org.uk .  Remember, the foundation of everything we do is your child's safety, yours and the staffs. We have taken external advice and have planned many safety measures to reduce the risks of COVID 19 spreading if there were positive cases. We hope that we have covered the main information that you would want in the letter (sorry it is a long letter).  If though, there is something else you want to ask then please do email us- if we can then answer a query we will or we will try and find out an answer if we don't know. 

As you know, we always move four of the five staff training days (PD Days) to the beginning of the year rather than have them spaced out. This is because every year we have to make sure staff are trained and refreshed in areas such as First Aid, choking, safer feeding, asthma, epilepsy, moving and handling, behaviour management etc. We will be covering this year all the areas that are needed but we will be using the rest of the time so staff are confident and clear with the revised procedures that we will be following. We hope this will be reassuring to our parents/carers and families. 

We hand delivered packs in July with a range of things including pupil reports and also photographic social story for return to school and some permission slips e.g. hand sanitiser. We have not re-sent these but if anyone has mislaid them then please email us.  We have asked parents/carers to provide some feedback about the support from primarily teachers while pupils have been off and for those who did access a risk assessed or key worker place in school a request for feedback. Please do try and send these back- we sincerely hope we never find ourselves in this situation again but we ever do we want to know if things like the teacher calls and regular contact, ideas, work, resources were of value. We have also asked parents/carers to share any changes in medical information or contact details. Alongside this sharing achievements so we can build on them and also any difficulties so we can work together on them- see the letter for more details. 

In July, we informed parents/carers there would be some changes to school hours to enable some staggering to assist with safer arrival and departure and we indicated the potential range of hours. The details are in the letters sent out. For anyone coming to site for drop off and pick up please be aware that things will settle when all are confident where they are going and when but it may take a little longer initially. We know you will support us with this. It is more complex as we have planned that only staff who work with your child's bubble will collect your child from whatever transport they are on. It is difficult to predict the order  that parent/carer cars or buses arrive  within the staggered time zones due to traffic and we can have only a certain number of staff outside at a time due to social distancing. We have planned what we think is a system that will take this into account but we will be monitoring this to ensure it is effective. 

We continue to send all our fantastic pupils and families our collective best of wishes. Staff have been saying regularly how much they have missed the pupils. We know that there are likely to be challenges ahead but we also know that the Bridge is about school and home working together in a supportive and safest way we able to. Please take care. 

The Bridge School.