This is important information for parents and carers following updated advice from the Government over the weekend.
The Government’s advice about sending your child to school even if you are a key worker, or if your child is vulnerable, can be interpreted in different ways. Following communication with parents and carers on Friday, events have changed; we need to ensure the safety and wellbeing of both learners and staff, so please familiarise yourself with the following information:
The default position is that the school is close
The Secretary of State has clarified his initial comments, and now says that ‘if a child can stay safely at home, then they should be at home’. Sending your child into school, places both them and the staff at greater risk.
Children in Care/EHCP/Social Worker attached
Parents of children with social workers or children with an EHCP do not have to send children into school, it is the parents’ or Carers’ choice.
Children of Key Workers
Again, a consensus has emerged which replaces previous advice. Even if you are a ‘Key Worker’ yourself, please ask whether your secondary school age child can remain at home. Is there another parent / carer who is not a ‘Key Worker’? Are they old enough to be left at home for periods of time during the day safely, as they would be during school holidays or weekends? We need to reduce the list of children who we are expecting to attend Kepier on Monday to an absolute minimum. If you did not complete the online form on Friday, your child will be sent home as we have not planned for their provision.
We have received a number of enquiries regarding Covid 19. Outlined below are our responses to some frequently asked questions:
Attendance
We will only accept learners onto the school site who we know in advance will be at School.
Contacting Kepier
We will keep parents / carers updated through our website: https://kepier.com/category/school-closure-updates/
We will also use other platforms such as Facebook, Class Charts and MyEd.
If you have any queries, please contact info@kepier.com
Members of the senior leadership team are continually monitoring this email address and will be able to advise accordingly.
Free School Meals
We are currently working with the Government to ensure that parents and carers of learners who are eligible for Free School Meals will receive payment. We are anticipating that this will be activated within the coming days. If you are struggling, please get in touch.
Trips and Visits
During this period, we have cancelled all trips, visits and events which were scheduled to take place until the end of this academic year. Parents and Carers will receive a full refund of any payments they have made. Parents and Carers will be contacted individually regarding refunds, please bear with us on this, we will refund as soon as possible.
Information from Parent Pay
Parent Pay has sent out a blanket message that they will not refund balances on accounts. This is not a school decision. However, we are considering the best way to refund parents and carers of learners who have a significant amount of credit on their account.
Online Learning Platforms
During this period, every learner has access to their learner homepage and the login details which are needed to access the system. Department Leaders have ensured there is work for learners to complete. Kepier uses a number of online learning platforms such as: GCSE Pod, Hegarty Maths and Educake. All learners have their usernames and passwords.
If your child is unable to access the internet, we have produced paper based workpacks for them to complete. Please email info@kepier.com if your child does not have access to the internet via their mobile phone whilst at home and we will send you a pack.
Period Poverty
During school closure, we will continue our support to tackle ‘period poverty’ by ensuring that free sanitary products are available to those learners in need. Please contact your child’s Year Manager via email if you need to access this service.
Virtual School Nurse service
The school nursing service is available via an online service, this can be accessed through our school website.
Mental Health Support
Xen Zone (Kooth.com) are continuing to provide a free online counselling and support service. Kooth.com which is available to all young people between the ages of 11-18 years old and for care leavers up to 25 years old.
Xen Zone is accredited by the BACH and a trusted partner of the NHS. Kooth.com has been commissioned by Together for Children and Sunderland Clinical Commissioning Group to provide a safe and confidential service for young people to receive advice and support.
Year 11 GCSE Results
On Friday, it was announced that the exam regulator, Ofqual as well as exam boards, will work with teachers to provide appropriate grades to learners whose exams have been cancelled this summer. Ofqual will develop and set out a process that will provide a calculated grade for each learner which reflects their performance as fairly as possible. They will work with the exam boards to ensure this is consistently applied for all students. Information regarding how learners collect their GCSE results will be shared with year 11 parents and carers directly, once results have been confirmed by the government.
Year 11 Leavers arrangements
During these unprecedented times and following the Government’s decision to close schools, our year 11 learners are no longer expected to attend Kepier. We want to ensure that the year 11 learners are able to celebrate their time with us like other year groups have. With this in mind, we will still be producing a yearbook and leavers hoodies will be available to purchase. Unfortunately, we have had to cancel the Prom, however, we are looking to hold an event in September 2020 and details will follow shortly.
We would like to thank you for all your support during these very difficult and unprecedented times and please do contact us if you have any further queries:
