Croesty Statement 08-12-20 COVID-19 Closure

The necessity to close Croesty Primary School has I am sure been a frightening, inconvenient and even infuriating development for everyone within our school community. Any disruption to our children’s education is something we at Croesty Primary School have worked tirelessly to prevent and we have been very successful until the end of last week in achieving this. 

We must not forget however, that we are living through a pandemic and my prime objective has been to keep people safe. We can put in place procedures to manage and reduce the risks but our experience across the world is that despite these measures we cannot as yet eradicate COVID-19 or provide 100% protection against this infectious virus.

We have reviewed our procedures throughout this term and have made adjustments accordingly. The pattern of increasing positive cases would suggest several different sources of the virus at school. These events seemed to have happened very much at the same time which has led to staff contracting the virus or has prevented them from attending work as they have been identified as contacts by Track, Trace and Protect. It may also indicate that the presence of the virus within our local community is currently quite high.

Our advice for you as parents has changed for some classes. We are not able to advise that children should self -isolate until we have a confirmed positive case within a group. Of all our staff who have contracted the virus, none displayed any of the key symptoms whilst in work. We have notified classes as these test results have come in and, in some cases, they are back dated. This unfortunately is the reality we face in managing this disease. Any further positive test results will not now impact on our remaining classes at Croesty.

Our digital classrooms are now up and running online and we have provisions in place to cover members of our staff who are currently unwell. 

We have notified Bridgend CBC Catering Services, and those families with Free School Meals entitlement will receive provisions for this week and next week if the school remains closed.

I will be meeting with the Chair and Vice Chair of Governors on Thursday (Online) where we will make a decision about the following week. Before doing so I will seek further advice from the Local Authority and their Health & Safety Team.

I would like to take this opportunity to thank you for all the kind messages of support that we have received – this helps us to carry on in such difficult circumstances. We send our best wishes to those in our class teams who are currently unwell and wish them a speedy recovery. Those of you who are Primary School colleagues will know that we have been very much on the front line since primary schools were reopened but that we have got on with our roles because we believe in education and have a real love for this job.

Take care and stay safe

M Kaye

Headteacher