CV&CC Update Tuesday 5th May: little new to report
CoronaVirus & College Closure Update
Update 5th May 2020
- NEW ITEMS
- The College is closed until further notice. Please ignore continuing media speculation about likely dates for schools re-opening. The next key date is the Government 3-week review on 7th May with an announcement expected about schools on Sunday 10th
- Friday 8th May is a Bank Holiday. Teachers will not be setting remote learning. ECP will run as usual, 08.30 – 17.00.
- College Closure: Main Points
- Clyst Vale site is closed, except our Emergency Childcare Provision (ECP) for children of key workers and vulnerable children (and deliveries, essential contractors, etc) ·
- Parents and carers can contact us as normal, although we recommend e-mail
- If you have any concerns about a student at Clyst Vale, please contact the school and ask to speak to a Designated Safeguarding Lead (Mr Sutton, Mrs Albutt, Miss McConnachie or Mr A Pearce). If this is not possible please contact MASH, The Multi-Agency Safeguarding Hub: 0345 155 1071.
- The College is closed until further notice. Please ignore continuing media speculation about likely dates for schools re-opening. The next key date is the Government 3-week review on 7th May with an announcement expected about schools on Sunday 10th
- Emergency Childcare Provision
- We are fully committed to maintaining our offer to look after the children of key workers (secondary age group) and vulnerable students
- ECP will run daily Monday to Friday 08.30 – 17.00. Please contact us if you wish to discuss varying these hours (within reason) for individual children.
(If no children attend, the College will close at 12.00.)
- ECP has moved to a booking system. Places for the next day can be booked until 9.00 p.m. the night before (including Sunday, for Monday). Or phone the number which has been provided to ECP parents.
- There is now an expectation that vulnerable students should really be in school unless there are health issues or (in the case of SEND students) they would be safer at home.
- School Transport is suspended. If you are a key worker and would like school transport, please contact on the day before you require transport.
- Remote Learning
- Teachers are working from home to set work on the day your child would have their lesson. The activities set should take 2-3 hours in Year 7 rising to 3-4 in Year 10.
- Work will be sent by e-mail to students’ College e-mail accounts, and also assigned on Microsoft Teams.
- Free School Meals
- We joined the Edenred/Government scheme from 6th
- On the Government scheme, parents can choose one of eight supermarkets. Asda and Waitrose will accept the codes for on-line ordering and home delivery. Aldi, McColls. Tesco, Sainsburys, Morrisons and M&S are in store only. (Lidl and the Co-op are NOT unfortunately in the scheme)
- Some parents are experiencing difficulty redeeming their e-codes to vouchers/e-gift cards. This is a problem with Edenred, but please contact Mrs Long on who may be able to help.
- The e-codes can be downloaded and forwarded or printed for someone else to use if a family is in self-isolation or cannot get to the supermarket.
- If you have any queries, or need or require e-codes to be posted, please contact Racheal Long on .
- Public Examinations
- Exam Results Days have been confirmed as the original dates of Thursday 13th August for A-Level and AS (and presumably vocational Level 3 courses, but we don’t know this); Thursday 20th August for GCSE (and vocational Level 1 & 2 courses ?).
- We still await information from the Department of Education or Exam Boards as to how vocational qualifications will be assessed, and also the mechanics of how we send results to the Exam Boards.
- We cannot discuss predicted grades with students, parents or carers at any stage. This is prohibited in the guidance.
- Trips and Visits
- Neither of the visits to Bude or the Belgian battlefields will be going ahead. Please do not make any more payments.
- Parents WILL be refunded in full for payments made for these visits and for Paris. Clearly, this is your money, so this is a priority for us and we will keep you posted, but it is not clear exactly when this happen, because we are in discussions with the companies and our insurers both of whom want the other to pay.
LINKS AND FURTHER INFORMATION
This is the Government’s guidance to parents:
The following link is the government’s advice to schools:
Guidance to Educational Settings About Covid-19
The next link is Devon County Council’s dedicated website for parents for Coronavirus advice
https://www.devon.gov.uk/document/schools-and-families/
Department for Education Coronavirus helpline:
Phone: 0800 046 8687 Opening hours: 8am to 6pm (Monday to Friday)
There are hundreds of support agencies’ links I could list for mental health and on-line issues. Here are just four, but all are tried and tested.
- kooth.com has a load of information and on-line counselling; mainly mental health
- childline.org.uk 0800 1111 has been around for ages, but is still one of the best helplines
- thinkuknow.org.uk focusses on on-line issues including bullying, or messages that make you uncomfortable
- Young Devon (Google it) is web-based, and points you to a wide range of possible services
Should you have any specific queries regarding Covid-19 and Clyst Vale, please e-mail Mrs Ann Hopkins (College Manager) on .
Kevin Bawn, Principal