Coronavirus Information | Ash Grange Primary School

In line with Government guidance we are currently on a partial shut down as of 23.3.2020.

We are providing school places for those where their parents are keyworkers or the child has an EHCP, or their family have a designated social worker and do not have anyone else to care for their child. The children will be taught by our school staff; every member of staff is on a school rota and has specific slots of work every week.

Free School Meals

We have contacted all our Free School Meal families to find out if they want to benefit from the government’s provision of £15 per week. Please see the latest update on 10th April 2020 for further details.

Learning from home

Children not coming to school and learning at home, have a wide variety of learning opportunities to choose from each day. Teachers will be setting new home learning tasks/activities on a Monday and Thursday each week. In addition, they will identify activities and websites for children to enjoy. Go to the class page for your child and see all the wonderful things that the teachers are putting up.

Parents/carers of Preschool, Nursery and Reception Class remember to use your I-connect/ParentZone account to see all the contents.
In addition:
- Mathletics (Reception to Year 6)
- Readiwriter (Year 1 to 6)
- Reading Eggs/Eggspress (Reception to Year 6)
- Timestable Rock Stars (Year 2 to 6)
Teachers are sending home books to read and additional items as selected for the children.
All learning will be sent electronically, please ensure you have all the details of passwords to be able to access this. If you require reminders then email the office at office@ash-grange.surrey.sch.uk

Weekly Whole School Challenge

At a time of social distancing I want us to feel connected in our community so each week there will be a whole school challenge (posted on Facebook, each class page and in the weekly newsletter). There will be resources to collect from school and then it would be wonderful if parents/carers could post on our Facebook page images of your children doing the challenge.

Follow our Facebook Feed for the latest updates below.

Latest News

Our key updates

18.5.2020

Statement from the UK Chief Medical Officers on an update to coronavirus symptoms: 18 May 2020

From today, all individuals should self-isolate if they develop a new continuous cough or fever or anosmia (a loss or change to your sense of smell or taste).

high temperature – this means you feel hot to touch on your chest or back (you do not need to measure your temperature)
new, continuous cough – this means coughing a lot for more than an hour, or 3 or more coughing episodes in 24 hours (if you usually have a cough, it may be worse than usual)
loss or change to your sense of smell or taste (anosmia) – this means you've noticed you cannot smell or taste anything, or things smell or taste different to normal

The individual’s households should also self-isolate for 14 days as per the current guidelines and the individual should stay at home for 7 days, or longer if they still have symptoms other than cough or loss of sense of smell.

Potential opening on 1st June 2020 - letter to parents

Covid19 Advice for parents when child unwell or injured

3.4.2020

We are open throughout the Easter holidays, including the Bank Holiday weekend. So remember if your circumstances change and you are doing a front line job and have no one else to care for your child/ren they can come to school. Email office@ash-grange.surrey.sch.uk

31.3.2020

We've had guidance to postpone all trips for the rest of the academic year, so there will be no trips going ahead until September 2020. Any money that has been paid will be rolled over to the next school year with a couple of exceptions:

1) Year 6 children - all families will be contacted to organise a refund for any money paid for the Residential and Horseshoe Lake, through a bank transfer (that the banks will complete by the end of April 2020).

2) Year 5 children - the deposits paid will be used for the trip when it is rebooked in the new school year. All families will be contacted who have paid more than the £30 deposit to find out if you would like it to be refunded or kept in readiness for the trip when it happens during Year 6.

Just in case you have any technical queries for home learning platforms of Mathletics, Reading Eggs, Reading Eggspress or Readiwriter, you can call them directly on 01173701990.

If you are having any issues, just check you are going through Google Chrome, this solves many issues.

If you have any home learning issues/questions pop an email to your child's teacher or the office team.

25.3.2020

It's good to talk... if you are in need of a chat give us a call. If you would like to talk with our School Counsellor she is available for phone calls on a Tuesday and Thursday, phone or email your details in to the office and we will organise this for you.

24.3.2020

Government Request: If your child has medication at school please collect it from the school office so you will have enough supplies at home.

23.3.2020

To adults currently sending their children into school. In light of the Prime Minister's new advice, please review your need for schooling. Only send your child to school if it is vital that all parents in your home leave the home for "absolutely necessary" work, to avoid all possible infections.

If you are choosing to keep your child at home from tomorrow, please let the school office know.

For those attending, the school gate will open from 8.30am, please remain with your child at a social distance until staff collect your child from the playground at 8.45am.

Updated 20.3.2020

As we prepare to enter the next phase of this pandemic it is important that you are fully informed about all the changes.

As you know the government have directed schools to close at the end of Friday until further notice. We have no idea how long this will last; we know it is for the next month including Easter we Will then wait to be informed of a return to school date but fully expect to return at some point in the summer term.

From Monday we will be running classes, one for Early Years/Key Stage 1, and one for Key Stage 2 to enable parents who are key workers and have no safe alternative care to be able to work. In addition, at Ash Grange we are also supporting families who may lose their job or earnings if they do not attend work. All parents/carers were contacted on Thursday 19th March to find out if they are entitled to this and if they want it. We have approximately 50 children coming to school from Monday.

The children will be taught by our school staff; every member of staff is on a school rota and has specific slots of work every week. Children in Early Years and Key Stage 1 will be in the Year 1 room, Children in Key Stage 2 will be in the Year 6 room; all children come into school (8.45am) at the front entrance by the office and leave at 3.20pm through the same door.

Children are expected to come to school in uniform with their PE kit, Swimming kits and lunch. Key Stage 1 and Free School Meal entitled children will have a packed lunch provided, all other families will be able to order a packed lunch and pay through Scopay as normal, if required. Each day we will have sports, online learning (set by their Classteacher), creative projects, reading and other lovely activities. Each day will have a special something: Monday and Friday is Premier Sports, Tuesday and Thursday is Swimming with Mr Cooper and Wednesday is Music with Mrs Haygarth and Sports afternoon. We want to keep those learning muscles working and have fun too.

Parents/carers of Preschool, Nursery and Reception Class remember to use your I-connect/ParentZone account to see all the contents.
In addition:
- Mathletics (Reception to Year 6)
- Readiwrite (Year 1 to 6)
- Reading Eggs/Eggspress (Reception to Year 6)
- Timestable Rock Stars (Year 2 to 6)
Teachers are sending home books to read and additional items as selected for the children.
All learning will be sent electronically, please ensure you have all the details of passwords to be able to access this. If you require reminders then call the office, Monday to Friday 8.45am-3.20pm.

If you do not have a device to access this home learning there are a small number of devices available for loan. These will be given on a first come first served basis, contact the office to arrange collection and signing of the letting agreement.

Parents/Carers who have a child who is entitled to a free school meal have been contacted with the information about the meal on offer during the partial closure of the school. I encourage you to take advantage of this offer for which you are entitled, food and money shortages make this very valuable. Whatever your decision please make sure you complete the form sent out so that we can cater for your family’s wishes.

Our first weekly challenge is Planting Week, from Monday each family can pop into school and collect 2 packets of seeds, one each of flower and vegetable . It is not warm enough yet to plant seeds outside so this is ideal for a windowsill. Children can use any container with holes for water to drain and any soil (seeds do not need special soil) and then get planting. Children can experiment with places and methods, there can be family competitions for growing. Take some photos of them getting messy and developing their green fingers! We’ll see who is a great gardener.

Other wonderful websites:

PE with Joe, this is the Body Coach who we use in school with the children. Every day at 9am on his YouTube channel: The Body Coach TV. He is going to be the nation’s PE teacher, creating wonderful exercise routines for the children to follow at home.
Premier Sports will have links to, these will be on the website
For Year 5 there will be online Little Voices lessons that the children can log into, this will be emailed to you. They will be able to keep up with their preparations for their recitals later in the year.

I ask you all to keep yourself safe and well, listen to and follow the government advice, they are trying to keep us protected and well. If you become unwell, follow the advice and self-isolate, get the help you need. If you have a need and no-one to help, we are here, we offer our support, we have access to a School Councillor and can be a listening ear.

We will be open every day of the week, including the Easter holidays to provide schooling and support to you all. We are in this together, travelling this unknown road together, sharing love and kindness wherever we can, this will pass.

I am so very proud of how the children have coped with this and how the staff have worked tirelessly to prepare your children for this next phase. On behalf of the staff and Governors we wish you all well, keep in touch, stay safe.

See you soon, kindest regards,

Mrs Curtis

Update Thursday 19th March 2020 6pm

In line with the government directive the school will be closed for most children from the end of the school day (including Funzone till 6pm) on Friday. From Monday 23.3.2020 there will be a Key Stage 1 and a Key Stage 2 class running each day for the those who qualify for schooling at this time:

A) If you are a keyworker or your child has an EHCP, or your family have a designated social worker and you do not have anyone else to care for your child,

B) If you are a working parent, in any industry, that without going to work would result in a loss of earnings and or your job plus, do not have anyone else to care for your child. (If you work from home you do not qualify for this category).

The detail of this current provision has been emailed to the parents/carers concerned.

This provision is subject to the government's directive and is subject to change in accordance with their instructions.

This provision is made possible by the kindness and exceptional dedication of our professional staff who are willing to put themselves in the front line of this pandemic in order to provide this community support.

Handwashing is crucial to prevent spread of the virus. Instead of soap bars, we have swapped back to hand soap dispensers, with refillable pumps. Please encourage your child to sing ‘Happy Birthday’ twice whilst they wash their hands – this is about the time required to properly wash hands. See the NHS website for guidance at www.nhs.uk/live-well/healthy-body/best-way-to-wash-your-hands/

Message from the Chair of Governors

Dear Parent/Carers,

As Chair of the Governing Body, I wanted to drop a quick message to everyone to thank you all for your continued support to our school with the recent changes that have been brought in to reduce the risk of spread of Covid-19 (coronavirus). We are really proud of how quickly Mrs Curtis and our school team have reacted to put in some measures to help our community such as increasing social distancing between the children, postponing assemblies and changing parent access into the school buildings to the office area. Teachers have also been working hard to ensure that work is available in the event of a closure, so please do look out for this and any updates that come from school.

I also wanted to jot some thoughts down about a few things to perhaps consider should more restrictive measures are implemented by the Government.

if you have changed email address or telephone number, please do let the office know so that your records can be kept up to date and school are able to keep in touch if anything changes.

Swapping phone numbers with other parents that you see and know at school. One of the risks should the country enter a lockdown scenario is that some people may feel quite isolated. Being able to keep in touch with people that you would normally see at school may help – perhaps organising a call once or twice a week just to have a catch-up by phone.
This might also be something that the older children might be able to do if you were to swap phone numbers with their friend’s parents
In the case of a very restrictive lockdown in the country, it may not be possible to meet up “for coffee” with a group of friends. If you have conference / multi-person calling on your phone or computer such as Skype, consider a call catch-up instead – a chat about what was on the TV the night before or a general “natter” can help to ease any feelings of isolation
Be mindful of where you are looking for information – consider the source of news and try to stick to “official” outlets such as well-known news stations and websites, the NHS official website etc. We live in a social media age and not all information such as Facebook posts will continue accurate or up to date advice
As always, if you do find that your mental health is suffering, seek advice and support such as MIND, The Samaritans, NHS 111

Kindest regards

Vicky Hallewell

Chair of Governors