Christmas Performances

Dear parents and carers,

I am writing to you to explain the schools decision to hold all of this year’s nativity performances and carol service virtually.

 

You will all be aware that as a school, we have had a steady flow of Covid 19 cases this term and more recently, this has increased. This means that we continue to be on the Covid 19 contingency plan, which we have been on since just after half term. As part of the plan we do not have all year groups mixing and do not hold assemblies in the hall in order to mitigate the risk to the children, staff and then you as families. All schools, whether locally or nationally will be in contrasting positions with regard to how many Covid 19 cases they currently have and each will make their own decisions in terms of being able to hold ‘live’ performances. As an example, just before half term our rates were very low and so we did offer live performances for Harvest whereas many schools did not do a Harvest production live.

 

As a school leader (as well as a mum), I fully understand how disappointing this must be, especially as this will be 2 years in a row that the children have not been able to perform to you as an audience at Christmas. However, we also have to balance the health and safety of the school community and do not want families or staff to need to self isolate over the Christmas period due to a Covid 19 outbreak caused by the school. From the schools perspective it is much simpler to have you attend in school or attending at the church than putting together a recorded performance. However, we do not believe, that at this time that it is sensible to have e.g 200+ key stage 2 children, plus staff, plus the audience all squeezed into the local church and 90+ KS1 children, plus staff and the audience squeezed into the school hall over multiple performances, and with little ventilation in both locations.

 

As a team, we intend to be as creative as we can for the remainder of the academic year, to have you in school with your children as much as possible.

 

We continually appreciate your support.

 

Best wishes

 

Leila Naldrett

Head of School