Charlton School

Dear Parent/Carer,

I hope you have had a good week.

We have been asked to share a few coronavirus reminders with our families, from the Local Authority and the DfE.

Cases in Telford and Wrekin remain high, and whilst there has been a reduction in cases in the last two weeks, the number of cases per 100,000 people (447) remains significantly above the National (338) and West Midlands (335) average.  It is vital that our students and families continue to test twice weekly using Lateral Flow Devices (LFDs) to continue to reduce the spread of infection in Telford and Wrekin.  We will be issuing another box of tests at the end of next week, students can collect additional boxes at any time when they are needed from our student reception.

We have seen a small number of cases in school since our return from the holiday, the Health Protection Hub have confirmed our additional protection measures can be removed at this time, but we are still asking staff to wear face masks at all times and will support any students who wish to continue with the use of face masks in school.  We have been given permission to resume trips but will insist that if the trip involves transport, then students should wear facemasks on the transport. Please support us with this by providing your child with a face covering, when necessary.

The Local Authority have also asked that children who are household contacts of positive cases take a daily LFT test for a period of 7 school days, in addition to the PCR test they will have been recommended to take. This includes primary aged children (reception onwards) but not those in early years settings. 

A Message from the Department for Education:

A reminder to schools and colleges about the importance of reporting test results

Thank you for continuing to encourage staff, students and pupils to test twice-weekly for COVID-19 at home. Reporting your tests, whether positive, negative or void, is as important as taking the test itself, as reporting results helps us understand the spread of the virus in local areas, log your test results here https://www.gov.uk/report-covid19-result.  Lateral flow device (LFD) tests have been widely and successfully used to detect asymptomatic COVID-19 cases.  A recent report has shown that the accuracy of LFD tests was more than 80% effective at detecting any level of COVID-19 infection and likely to be more than 90% effective at detecting the most infectious people at the point of testing. 

As a school we are committed to offering our full range of curricular and extra-curricular activities this year, but to ensure we can do this we need to keep the number of positive cases in school as low as possible.  Please support us by following the guidance above and the advice for the general public https://www.gov.uk/guidance/covid-19-coronavirus-restrictions-what-you-can-and-cannot-do.

Yours faithfully 

Mr A McNaughton

Principal