20th April 2020
You may have seen some news reports suggesting that the Government had set a date for re-opening schools in England. This is not true. The Government has not yet made a decision on when to partially or fully re-open schools.
On Sunday 19th April 2020 the Secretary of some State for Education, Gavin Williamson, set out five tests that the Government says must be met before schools can fully re-open.These are :
1. We must protect the NHS’s ability to cope and be sure that it can continue to provide critical care and specialist treatment right across the whole of the UK.
2. We need to see the daily death rates from Coronavirus coming down.
3. We need to have reliable data that shows the rate of infection is decreasing to manageable levels.
4. We need to be confident that testing capacity and PPE are being managed, with supply able to meet not just today’s demand, but future demand.
5. Perhaps most crucially, we need to be confident any changes we do make will not risk a second peak of infections.
Please be assured that even when these tests are met, the decision to return our pupils to our academies will be taken by Wave Trust. The practical steps that will have to be taken to ensure our academies are a safe place for pupils will be based on our own risk assessments. This information will be communicated to staff, pupils, parents and carers directly by Wave. Please ignore any other speculation.
In the meantime, apart from the education hubs which have been opened to cater for vulnerable children and the children of key workers in Cornwall and Devon, all other Wave academies remain closed.
Please find attached a letter that has been sent out to all parents/carers today.
