Dear Parents and Carers,

I hope you are all managing to stay safe and well in the current lockdown.

INSET day – Friday 12th February

Our INSET day on 12th February will go ahead as planned. School will be closed to all students that day and the SEN transport team has been informed. Staff will be taking part in on-line safeguarding, awareness autism and sensory needs training.

Annual Review meetings

All annual review meetings are still being held on Microsoft Teams and parents are sent the invitations to these meetings by either Nathan and I. I’m delighted that so many parents are able to join the meetings this way, we are making the best of a difficult situation.

When you receive an email about the meeting from Natalie Cantle, our school manager, the paper work is all within the email itself – all you need to do is scroll down the message and click on each document. This email comes two weeks before the meeting. The documents included are: the review information (including ‘all about me’, social care, health, looking back and looking forward sections), the preparation for adulthood plan and any support plans your son / daughter has.

Return to school

We currently have 28 students, out of our 95 on role, in school each day and any parent who wants their son / daughter to return to school should contact me as soon as possible by phone or email (contact details are at the end of this letter).

Lancaster is open and we are doing all we can to provide as many places as possible for students who want to be in school. Places do depend on staff availability, which can be affected by health, infection rates and staff being able to put their own children in school.

If your son / daughter is not in school and you do not contact me I will assume you are requesting leave of absence for your son / daughter due to Covid. These requests are granted and our teachers provide daily remote learning for all those not in school.

Teachers report to me each week about each student’s involvement in remote learning and if I have any concerns I contact parents. Our expectation is that you do all you can to support your son / daughter to engage in this learning and we look at each student as an individual and expect different levels of engagement, according to the individual’s needs.

‘Student social distancing walks’ for students not in school

If your son / daughter is at home and you would like staff to take them on social distancing walks for their wellbeing, then please contact me to arrange this. We do have some staff who can do this at certain times of the day, so we will do our best to support this.

Laptops for remote learning for students at home

If your son / daughter is staying at home and you have issues with providing them with a laptop please let me know, we now have laptops that we can loan out to families.

Reporting Covid positive tests

If your son / daughter is at home and they test positive for Covid, please let me know as I am required to report all cases to the local authority.

Testing in school

Staff in school are self-testing at least once a week, and usually twice a week, and students who have consent from parents are being tested once a week.

Covid vaccinations for staff

You will be delighted to know that staff in special schools were given permission to have the vaccination last week. 76% of staff have had their first vaccination and the most of the rest are having it in coming days, while some have been advised by their doctors not to have it yet for health reasons.

If you have any questions about any of the updates above, please feel free to call me at any time on 07900 – 366710 or email me on head@lancaster.southend.sch.uk

Yours sincerely

Tom Jackson-Owens

Headteacher.