From 1st April 2022 schools and nurseries are now having to follow the living with COVID-19 advice and guidance from government. We will still be ensuring that our children, staff and visitors follow good hygiene practices and that our rooms are kept well ventilated.
As we learn to live safely with COVID-19, there are actions we can all take to help reduce the risk of catching COVID-19 and passing it on to others. These actions will also help to reduce the spread of other respiratory infections.
Symptoms of COVID-19, flu and common respiratory infections include:
– continuous cough
– high temperature, fever or chills
– loss of, or change in, your normal sense of taste or smell
– shortness of breath
– unexplained tiredness, lack of energy
– muscle aches or pains that are not due to exercise
– not wanting to eat or not feeling hungry
– headache that is unusual or longer lasting than usual
– sore throat, stuffy or runny nose
– diarrhoea, feeling sick or being sick
Children with mild symptoms such as a runny nose, sore throat, or slight cough, who are otherwise well, can continue to attend their education setting.
Children who are unwell and have a high temperature should stay at home and avoid contact with other people, where they can. They can go back to school or childcare, and resume normal activities when they no longer have a high temperature and they are well enough to attend.
All children with respiratory symptoms should be encouraged to cover their mouth and nose with a disposable tissue when coughing and/or sneezing and to wash their hands after using or disposing of tissues.
If a child has a positive COVID-19 test result they should try to stay at home and avoid contact with other people for 3 days after the day they took the test, if they can. After 3 days, if they feel well and do not have a high temperature, the risk of passing the infection on to others is much lower. This is because children tend to be infectious to other people for less time than adults.
More advice can be found on this website: https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/coronavirus-covid-19/symptoms/coronavirus-in-children/
From 30th November 2021 all visitors to nursery, including parents, are required to wear a face covering when they are inside the building, so please bring a mask with you if you need to come inside to speak to a staff member or to help your child.
Staff will also be wearing face coverings in the communal parts of the building, but not when working directly with the children as this could hinder the children’s speech development.
To continue to protect our staff and children we will still be asking parents to drop off and collect their children from external doors once they are settled in nursery. These may be different doors to last year so please see Tapestry for information regarding specific groups.
We are expecting more vehicles to be using our staff and visitor carpark this academic year so we will no longer be using it as an exit route for parents and children. Therefore the one way systems we had in place will no longer be used. Again please see Tapestry for details.
Please also see the update below from July as this is all still relevant.
We have updated our extensive risk assessment and are making changes for September 2021 in light of government guidelines altering over the summer holidays. We will not be required to keep the children in consistent groups (bubbles) in September, however the 2 year olds will still be in their own room which is completely separate from our 3-4 year olds.
Schools will no longer trace contacts, this will be done by Track and Trace. Children will no longer have to self-isolate except where they are specifically told to by Track and Trace, instead all members of the household will need to have a PCR test (one sent to a lab) if someone in the household tests positive for covid-19. PCR tests can be obtained by phoning 119 or from www.gov.uk/get-coronavirus-test
We will still have some procedures in place to ensure that nursery is as safe as we can make it for children, parents and staff. We ask for your help in following the rules and systems listed below to enable everything to run smoothly when you return or start nursery after the summer holidays.
The school will do its best to:
We ask that to help your child at school, you do the following:
Please see government guidance for further details
Our current full covid risk assessment:
Our outbreak management plan: