Dear Parents,

I hope you have all had and enjoyable Christmas and New Year so far.

I am sure you are aware from the news that school staff have been advised by unions to invoke Section 44 of the Health and Safety Act and therefore be unable to work onsite in school other than for vulnerable children or Key Worker children.

However, after a meeting today with school staff, the staff have informed me that they will be in school tomorrow and therefore Pleasant Street will be open for all children.

I am grateful to all staff, as they did not want to close the school, with little or no notice to parents to make alternative arrangements for childcare. If you are not sending your child to school tomorrow, please let us know via the usual methods as it is vital to our collective safety that we have clear details of absences.

Some Liverpool schools will not open from tomorrow due to staff shortages. Our staff have informed me they will be continually monitoring the spread of this new strain of Coronavirus and will review their decision accordingly. Therefore, it is possible that we will need to close the school in the near future, if infection rates continue to soar as they are presently.

We know this will bring considerable difficulties for some parents, equally, it will bring reassurance to others who are increasingly worried about the virus. As a school, we felt it was important to give parents as much notice as possible before any decision to close (other than for Vulnerable and Key Worker children) was made.

If we do need to close in the coming days or weeks this decision will not be taken lightly. I am sure you will appreciate, we will always act in the interests of safety for our whole school community, staff will be taking regular LFT tests and we encourage you to do the same.

Stay safe and hope to see you all tomorrow, please remember to wear masks and observe social distancing at drop off and home times.

Mr. Verdin (Headteacher)