An update from Acorn Education Trust Senior Leadership Team

Dear parents

Firstly and most importantly, we hope you, your family and friends are well.

Following the Prime Minister’s announcement last night we thought it was important to inform you of our thinking as term 6 approaches. We continue to follow government policy which  is now “stay alert, control the virus, save lives”. The Prime Minister said: “If we as a nation begin to fulfil the conditions I have set out, then in the next few weeks and months, we may be able to go further. In step two at the earliest by June 1st after half term, we believe we may be in a position to get primary pupils back into schools, in stages, beginning with reception, year 1 and year 6. Our ambition is that secondary pupils facing exams next year will get at least some time with their teachers before the holidays.” We hope to hear more logistical detail about what this really means during the week and we very much hope we can welcome more of our children into our schools in June.

What is absolutely clear is the need to move carefully and slowly into a new “normal” operation, which will provide significant challenges for us all. Each school will have its own logistical issues and we will be unable to open to anywhere near capacity whilst we need to maintain distancing to prevent infection spreading and we have staff shielding. This means we will only be able to have some learners from each year group on site at any one time. Further information will follow about this once government expectations are made clear. However, we acknowledge that, although we want to support families by accommodating as many learners as possible on site, many of you will be anxious about children’s safety amongst large numbers and, similarly, many of our staff are already anxious about their safety amongst large numbers. This is going to be complex and is likely to remain so for a considerable amount of time whilst we work towards a new “normal”. Please bear with us as we work out the details.

We are also acutely aware some of our children/students may not return to their school until September, so this week we will review our home learning curriculum and resources to ensure we are providing stimulating materials for all.

Each school will be in touch with more detailed information as soon as it is possible.

Take care and very best wishes, 

The Acorn Senior Executive Team