Dear Parents and Carers,

Thank you for all of your help and support in keeping Ashmount School open.

We fully understand if parents choose to keep their child at home to reduce the risk of infection. There will be no penalties from school if you choose this course of action.

Staff have been fantastic in ensuring that our pupils continue to access the very highest standards of education and care during the current crisis.

The government have announced that all schools will close on Friday 20^th March 2020.

However, Ashmount School will continue to remain open from Monday 23^rd March 2020.

All of our students have Education, Health and Care Plans (EHCPs), and the government has committed to continuing to provide education for these children and young people.

Our staffing levels have continued to fall in line with pupil absences due to families being required to self-isolate.

We will continue to add learning resources to the ‘Learning from Home’ section of our school website for those children and young people who are required to self-isolate at home.

We expect school transport services to remain in place.

We are waiting confirmation that our teachers and support staff will be named as key workers and that childcare plans will be put in place for their children so that they can continue to work at Ashmount.

We have plans to run a skeleton staff targeting our most vulnerable students and key worker families if staffing levels fall below what we would deem safe to keep the whole school open.

We will continue to re-assess the situation on a daily basis and provide an update if anything changes, however, please don't hesitate to get in touch if you have any further questions.

David Deacon

Headteacher