School Closure

20th March 2020
Dear Parents and Carers,

As you now know, schools have been instructed to close for the majority of pupils until further notice. I know many people are feeling very wobbly about what lies ahead but we will do our very best to support you remotely. In reality, though we have made plans based on where we are now. Discussions, plans and thoughts are all very much centered around the words ‘For now’ as none of us quite know what the next few weeks will look like.

I would like to thank all the staff for their help, support and adaptability over the past couple of weeks and commend them for the spirit they have shown in this.

Each class teacher has prepared a pack of suggested work for your child to do at home. Whilst we would obviously hope that over this period, you will encourage your child to do a little work each day, we also recognise that none of us know quite what our family situation will look like and schoolwork, quite simply, might not be something that takes precedent.

The pack is there for you to use at your discretion. We do not want it to become another anxiety for our children. We do not want them worrying about what they have done and what they have not done. It is provided essentially to support those children and their families, who want to maintain elements of learning whilst the children are off school.

Within your pack will be a letter from your child’s class teacher, which will include their work email address. If you have questions about the work that they can easily answer, please get in touch with them. I would caution though that if teaching staff are well, they will obviously respond to you as soon as possible. If however, they are unwell, they will cease to work until they are better.

If you wish to contact me directly, please email at [email protected]

Additionally, if you wish to contact Mrs Smith about any pastoral care or wellbeing concerns, please email her at [email protected] and she will try her best to support you remotely.

If you have any SEND questions or queries, please email Miss Lowe at [email protected]

We will endeavour to keep you updated as information becomes available to us in a similar way to that of ‘snow days’. Updates will appear on our website, via twitter and by Parentmail. Hopefully, at least one of these means will work.

We will endeavour to do the very best we can in all of this, but hope you will bear with us as, like you all, we do not really know what we are facing.

As you will be aware, schools are required to stay open for some children. To make that work at Epping Upland, we are running two teams of staff, hopefully with enough in each team to manage should staff become ill. They will work on a rota basis of two weeks in school and two weeks from home. I think it should be noted that all our staff have offered to work through the Easter Holiday for our Key Worker families should they need to.

These are unchartered times, nothing like which any of us have experienced before. May we all wish each other well, be kind and supportive of each other and understand the challenges we are all facing. I am sure that if not already, we will be touched individually by this in some way at some point.

Thank you for your patience and understanding so far. Our thoughts and good wishes go to you and your loved ones. And as I always say to the children when term ends …… ‘Keep Safe’.

Take good care.

Sarah Hurwood
Headteacher