Important new term arrangements...
Please read the information below carefully.
Staggered start to the new term: As you are aware, at CFS we had already decided to have a home learning week from 4th to 8th January. As of today and in line with government guidance, all primary year groups which are years R-6, as well as Year 11 (which is our GCSE exam class) will return to school on Monday 11th January. Years 7, 8, 9 and 10 will return to school on Monday 18th January. If you are a key worker family and are not able to make alternative arrangements for the week of 11th to 15th January for your secondary aged children, please contact us directly on ks@cfschool.org.uk
Testing for staff and secondary aged pupils: For the time being, we have decided that facilitating regular rapid testing on site for us as a school will be a very complex task. However, we would like to work with our community to keep Coronavirus infections down and to help as many pupils and staff to be able to be in school as possible. Therefore, in order to achieve this, we propose to take advantage of the Rapid (SMART) testing already available in Liverpool (which is currently planned to continue until the end of January) and would like to implement the following measures:
1. That staff and Year 11 pupils (and others if they want to) have two Rapid (SMART) tests at least 3 days apart between 4th and 10th January ready for starting back to school on 11th January. This is not compulsory but is strongly recommended. However, please note that this is not appropriate if the pupil has previosuly tested positive in recent weeks because further tests may still give positive results.
2. That Years 7, 8, 9 and 10 do the same the following week, ideally with the second test on Sunday 17th January.
3. That staff have regular weekly tests every weekend at one of the SMART testing centres as above so that they can receive a result before coming to school on Monday mornings.
4. That if and when a pupil who shows symptoms and tests positive for the virus, that their known in-school contacts (ie. bubble etc.) should have daily Rapid (SMART) testing for 7 days at one of the sites in Liverpool (as above) so that they can continue attending school. They would usually need to do this after school each day as most sites are open 8am-6/7pm. If you decide not to have daily testing, then the pupil will need to stay home for 10 days and do home learning.
We understand that the Rapid (SMART) test sites in Liverpool and the Wirral are remaining open until at least the end of January and can be found here - this is a live website which indicates how busy each test site is at any given time.
Please email ks@cfschool.org.uk before school reopens if your child(ren) test positive over the Christmas break so that we can have an accurate picture of the spread of the virus within school.
Further information including any possible revisions to our risk assessment or other related matters will be communicated after our staff INSET days on 4th and 5th January.