St Joseph’s RC Primary School is committed to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children and young people. All staff, governors and volunteers are expected to share this commitment. For more information please see our safeguarding policy which can be found under Key Information > Policies & Statements > Safeguarding Policy.
TERM TIME HOLIDAYS, HALF TERM HOLIDAYS ABROAD AND QUARANTINE
Dear Parents / Carers,
before we reach the half term holiday, I wanted to write and remind parents that holidays during term time will not be authorised by the school, even in this current climate. Attendance, after such a long period of closure has never been more importance, and the exceptional circumstances where a holiday would be authorised during term time are few and far between. The Local Authority have informed us that they will be issuing penalty notices for non-Covid, unauthorised absence. We do ask though that you always inform us in writing if you are taking your children out of school for a holiday during term time, as otherwise when the children do not present at school and we cannot locate them, we have to follow our safeguarding procedures and this could result in a referral to children's social care if we are unable to communicate with parents. Please therefore be honest about the situation and keep us informed.
I also wanted to write and highlight the need to quarantine for two weeks following a return from a very long list of countries due to the pandemic, as I am sure that you are more than aware of. Please do check the government list and inform us immediately if you are planning to go abroad during the half term holiday and then on return you will have to quarantine for 14 days. This absence, for your child, is authorised absence linked to the pandemic; however as you can imagine as a school we would prefer the children not to miss out on their education. If your child does have to quarantine then home learning will be made available to you. Please get in touch as soon as possible if this is the situation for you and your child. The governments list can be found here, please note that the latest countries to be added were Turkey and Poland -
https://www.gov.uk/guidance/coronavirus-covid-19-travel-corridors
If you require any further information about any of this, please contact myself or Rebecca Vernon, here at school.
Kind regards,
Mrs C Dunne
Headteacher