Update 29.4.21

Dear Parents/Carers,

As some of you will see, the plume of smoke is still in existence, but thankfully staying away from us.

I am meeting the Health and Safety council Lead onsite at 7am tomorrow to assess the site again.

The strategic update meeting between the council, health professionals and the fire department is happening now and we will receive some predictive information shortly.

We hope to again be open tomorrow, but as I have said, if smoke changes direction and puts the school as a direct hit, we may need to rethink.

I will update you later today with more probability information when I receive it. We are sorry that we can not give you a 100% straight answer at this time.

Thank you for your understanding.

MIss Cook

Dear Parents / Carers,

I have just been updated by the Council and as promised, I am letting you know straight away what the situation is.

They have informed us that we need to keep our school closed tomorrow.

This is an evolving situation and it is unclear where the plume of smoke will be tomorrow and so the decision was made by the Council, to enable you to make arrangements with more notice.

As stated previously, we will be continuing our online learning offer, so please refer to your child’s class page for more information.

We are hopeful that the situation will soon be resolved, resulting in the safe reopening of our school.

More information will be shared as we receive it.

Regards

Miss Cook

Dear Parents/Carers,

I have just received an update from the Council concerning this ongoing difficult situation and want to pass this onto you promptly to aid your planning.

The fire is still active and fire crews are still in attendance at the site. The issue is that they have not got precision accuracy, when it comes to predicting what the weather forecast will do between now and the morning.

This aspect is key, as they need to know if the wind will pick up and what direction this may blow. The wind affects the way the smoke plume will move and therefore the impact on air quality in the targeted area.

I have been told I will receive a call early tomorrow morning instructing me on whether we can open the school or not. I know this is not ideal and have asked them to call me as early as ever possible, so that I can inform you all straight away.

On the plus side, we do have online learning to fall back on should we have to close. Teachers are brilliant at adapting their offer and I really hope the children have been able to access this today.

Fingers crossed the weather conditions are kind to us and therefore allow us to reopen safely. As ever, I know communication is key and I will of course let you know as soon as I know.

Many thanks,

Miss Cook

Dear Parents/Carers,

Apologies for the late notice concerning our school closure today. We received the information from the council and immediately informed all staff and parents. We understand that organising child care with no notice is a real stress for many.

As I hope you know, we are always very reluctant to close school and only do so when absolutely necessary.

I have just come off the phone from a representative from the Health and Protection team and been told that the situation is ongoing. I asked about the probability of us being closed tomorrow and they told me that was unknown at this time, but that they will update me as soon as possible.

I will let you know their instruction on this as soon as we have been told.

In the meantime, all staff have been instructed to move to online learning straight away. Please do support your child in accessing this learning so as to limit the impact of the school closure. Again, we understand this could be difficult depending on your own circumstances. Staff know that parents could find it difficult to find enough devices and support and therefore they will ensure the online offer can be carried out by children independently.

Thank you for your support, more messages will come through later on this afternoon.

Miss Cook

Headteacher

Newdale Primary School and Nursery