The free school meals we provide are divided into the two different categories of Universal Infant Free School Meals, and the Benefits Related Free School Meals.

The food voucher scheme relates only to the Benefits related meals. as detailed on this government page:

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/covid-19-free-school-meals-guidance/covid-19-free-school-meals-guidance-for-schools

I have emailed the families who are currently entitled to the vouchers, and am in the process of making the arrangements for their delivery by email. This is likely to take a day or two.

If the entitled families have not received an email from me, it is because the email contact we is out of date, and families must contact me with an active email account if this is the case.

Families who currently find themselves in a financial situation which may entitle them to apply for the benefits related free meals, should make contact with me and I can try to provide further information on the process.

Mr Thompson

5th April

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Miss Harvey

Sorry it has taken so long, but setting up the ability to send emails out to the whole school has been bizarrely difficult. I’ve sent the important email to the email we have for you on the school money system, so if this is not correct you may need to let me know. I’m getting undeliverable messages already so there must be some not correct.

I’ll reproduce the letter on the main page for those of you who don’t receive it.

Hopefully I have not made any mistakes. You should ONLY see your email address and not anyone not the email address of any other parent.

This will help communication between us all, but I don’t want to use this too often at the moment in case I make a mistake.

Mr Thompson

Hi Class 2,

Please see our brand new Class 2 homepage for an update!

Miss Jones x

I have deleted the previous post on hub schools to improve the accuracy of the information I am giving.

The nearest Hub School is Whittington Primary School, but I would ask you not to contact them directly. If you need a place in this hub please contact me directly on my email address head@brynoffa.shropshire.sch.uk

When I receive your email I’ll email a form to you to collect the relevant information. I apologise if this is some of the same information you gave to me previously on our paper forms, but these are at school and not possible to retrieve.

Even before you get the form back there is another piece of information I may need more urgently. If you think you may need transport provided by the local authority if you received a place at the hub school please contact me as soon as possible.

Mr Thompson

After the difficult decision to close the school yesterday it became necessary for a new plan. The best plans are always made when all the information is know and time allowed to consider every possibility.

The first step of my new plan is to begin by setting up the lines of communication. My aim today is to attempt to contact the company we use for school meal payments. If we upgrade our agreement with them it will allow me to send out messages to all parents much longer than the tiny limit we currently have. The emphasis here is all parents.

If I can get the new messaging system set up it will allow me to communicate with parents and hopefully the current email system will allow all parents to communicate with me. I say hopefully, because I can’t assume all parents have access to email as some may only use text messaging on their phones or applications on phones such as ‘Telegram’ or ‘WhatsApp’. I’m sure this will be just a technical problem to overcome.

For the time being, please only use my email address to communicate with school and not the admin account. My email address is:

head@brynoffa.shropshire.sch.uk

I will monitor this address during school hours only.

Once I’ve been able to set up the lines of communication we can start planning our next steps. There is little point in me setting up systems that don’t cover 100% of our children and parents.

Please bear with us during this time as it is important to make sure Step One is complete before moving onto the next stage.

As I would like all parents to see this message and not just the ones checking the blog daily, please tell as many parents as you can to come and read it, but please only do so safely.

Things may look a little hopeless for some in the short term, but I am very optimistic about things in the medium and long term. My optimism comes from our starting point of having the best staff, the best children and best parents from any school I’ve ever seen. At Bryn Offa we often lead the way, but perhaps don’t always shout about it.

Mr Thompson

It is with enormous regret that I will be closing Bryn Offa CE Primary School until further notice.

After recent changes in the recommendations by the World Health Organisation, I am not confident that I can provide a safe environment for my staff to work in.This is simply not a risk I can ignore.

The local authority has been informed, and if you need provision for your children you must contact the LA for them to make arrangements. Further details will follow asap.

I really did try my very best to make this work, but it was simply a risk too far.

Mr Thompson

15th March 2020 16:19

At the time of this update we are open as normal tomorrow. If your child is unwell and not able to attend school tomorrow please telephone school to let us know.

The guidance from the government remains the same, anyone with a new and persistent cough or a temperature above 37.8C should self isolate for a period of 7 days but this does not extend to the whole family.

The temperature guidance is very clear to follow, but there have been debates over the weekend as to what constitutes a persistent cough. This has been described as lasting half a day or more and unusual for your child. Some children can suffer from coughing in relation to asthma, but these coughs can last less than half a day and be relieved by asthma medication. If in doubt keep them off school and monitor the situation. Please then telephone the school to have a conversation with me before you consider sending them back to school.

As the situation is changing rapidly, I will continue to post messages here whenever I have any clear information or guidance to report.

Mr Thompson