COVID Update from Deputy Head

Monday 8th March – Return to School

Timings:
We shall be staggering the return of pupils on Monday morning to allow us to meet with each group to welcome them back and to remind them of the rules and guidelines in place at school. All day pupils must go through the temperature scanner at Piccadilly Café or have their temperature taken by Lower School (QMH) staff on arrival. All lessons will start with Period 2 at 10am. Lessons then proceed according to the regular timetable for the remainder of the term. Timings for Monday 8th March may be read in the table below. Please note that although registrations will happen by individual House, Mr Mark Harrison or Mr David Corran will brief the twinned Houses as one unit.

Lunch Time Arrangements
In order to prevent overcrowding in the Dining Hall at lunchtimes, we will be returning to the split period 4 timetable. This means that the 3rd, 4th and Sixth Form will have lunch between 12.10pm and 1.10pm and 1st, 2nd, 5th and Pre-Sixth Form will have lunch between 1.10pm and 2.10pm. There is a separate document posted in the Houses giving each year group their time slots for meals.

We strongly encourage everybody to stay outside in break and lunchtime when possible. This will further restrict the transmission of COVID. Mr Miller and the PE Department have kindly agreed to provide supervision in outside sports areas at break and lunchtime this term. In particular, we urge 3rd and 4th Form pupils not to return to House and to the kitchens because Edward and Tudor have large numbers of pupils in them during the day. There is catering for different year groups in the Piccadilly Café and in the Dining Hall. Please stick to your arranged time slot.

There will be some limited sports and activities, concentrating on those that can take place outdoors. As term progresses we will review the question of use of indoors facilities. Most music rehearsals and lessons are taking place, although not the full Choir and other big ensembles.

Masks/ face coverings should be worn in all areas of School. Exceptions may be made for sport, drama and other activities where it’s necessary to see individuals’ mouths and faces. To illustrate, it would be perfectly acceptable for Modern Foreign Languages oral classes to be held without face coverings. This guidance is “strongly encouraged” rather than mandatory but we would expect goodwill from all members of the community, partly to give everyone further confidence in returning to School.

Uniform

Pupils must wear school uniform from Monday 8th March. I realise that many children will have outgrown their uniform. In this case, they should wear school-branded sports kit until they have been able to make an appointment with the Sewing Room (open from Monday morning). We ask pupils to attend these appointments alone, to avoid breaking Lockdown rules. No pupil should attend School in home clothes unless absolutely necessary and with permission of their Housemaster or Housemistress. We strongly recommend all pupils wear the school tracksuit over their sports kit to travel to and from School. On days when they have games, pupils should arrive at School in sports kit (as above). We will have to relax the usual guidance on hair length for boys but only while hairdressers remain closed for business.

The one-way system applies fully now that the School is fully operational. It is important to follow the signs on the ground/floor and on walls and posts. This allows us to manage the flow of people around the site especially at high-traffic moments: the start of the day, break, lunch, between lessons.

Pupils and staff should wear face coverings in House for the first week back while we re-establish our ‘households’. We will review this guidance and hope to relax it after the first week back.

Testing

The first set of three tests will be conducted in the Dance Studio by the testing team headed by Mrs Butler. These tests will take about ten days to roll out for the whole School. After that, day pupils will have to follow the ‘home testing’ procedures and upload their results to BOTH NHS Test and Trace AND the School. Mrs Butler and Mr Corran have sent a communication to your parents detailing this and we shall remind pupils of the process nearer the time.

Welcome back!

Mr David Corran

Deputy Head