Reflections on week 34

As you will all be aware from my social media posts during this week, the local infection rate is growing exponentially and we now have two class bubbles closed- more than we had at the height of the first wave. Over the road at the high school, many more classes are having to close. Siblings will infect each other, so if you are having one child tested, please get your whole family done at the same time.

Please make full use of the local testing facilities to have your children checked. The advice from the Tameside Public Health team is to have all children from closed classes tested with a PCR at the local ‘walk-in’ centres.

Below are the ‘official’ symptoms to be aware of, however, I have also noticed that children testing positive have also all had sickness and/or diarrhoea. If your child has any of these symptoms, please DO NOT send them into school and have them tested asap.

Covid-19 Symptoms 

If your child or a member of your household develops Covid-19 symptoms, please DO NOT send your child into school. You should inform school that they will be absent and arrange for a test as soon as possible.  All members of the household should self-isolate.  Please inform school of the outcome of the test. 

The main symptoms of Covid-19 are: 

  • a high temperature – this means feeling hot to touch on your chest or back (you do not need to measure your temperature) 
  • a 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) 
  • a loss of or change to your sense of smell or taste – this means you've noticed you cannot smell or taste anything, or things smell or taste different to normal 

Further advice is available on the NHS website.  

On a positive note, it is great to watch the year 6 children so engrossed in their Shakespeare project and I have my fingers crossed that they can attend the day in Salford when their productions will be filmed professionally. Let’s also do everything possible to control the outbreaks so that these children get to go on their postponed, residential visit.

Year 5 classes are busy producing their movies for our film festival (5BIH will still be part of this after their self-isolation period). The teamwork on display is a creditable and demonstrates  how they are maturing.

The week began with year 1 and year 2 sports days and it was lovely to witness the enthusiasm from the children and delightful to see how they supported each other. The staff member that came up with the new event (hand gel dash) clearly has a future in public health!

Nursery sports day is underway today and I’m always impressed that the staff can get our youngest to understand the complexities of this event. – Well done all.

A final reminder…the ‘Vaccine Van’ will be on the Market Place in Hyde tomorrow and no appointments or ID are required. Please go along and get yourselves this protection.

I hope everyone enjoys the weekend (in a socially-distance way!)

Best wishes

Mr Fell