Dear Parents and Carers,

I hope you and your families are well and keeping your spirits up as we live through these difficult times. I would like to thank you personally for the support and understanding that you have shown over the last few weeks. Your response to our approach as a Trust has been fantastic and knowing we have your support is really important as we try and work through these unprecedented challenges.

As you will be aware, there has been a review of the measures that the government is taking to address the Covid-19 outbreak. The advice relating specifically to schools is open to broad interpretation and does not specifically reference special schools or secondary schools. However, current advice from the Department for Education places the emphasis on special schools and specialist post-16 settings making decisions for themselves based on a risk assessment of their specific situations.

Having taken this into consideration and consulted with our Trustee Board and Senior Leaders across the Trust, we have made a number of key decisions which I would like to share with you. I want to do this now so that you have as much clarity as possible about what is happening over the next few months. I hope that the clarity this provides helps people to plan ahead and therefore helps to reduce anxiety and confusion.

Firstly, we have decided that we will not be reopening the school or Chatsworth Futures for the remainder of the Summer Term. We will continue to offer our Support Programme for a limited number of pupils who are identified through liaison between senior Leaders and Salford Local Authority. However, the vast majority of pupils will not be returning to the school or Chatsworth Futures before September 2020.

Secondly, we will be significantly increasing the ‘on-line’ learning offer for both pupils in the school and learners at Chatsworth. We are working as Senior Leaders to identify good, safe practice to provide on-line learning and will be circulating this information to you very soon.

Finally, we are planning on re-opening both the school and Chatsworth Futures in September 2020. We will be doing this as a phased programme so that pupils and learners are gradually re-introduced on a safe and sustainable basis. Between now and September we will be working closely with colleagues in public health in order to ensure that we create as safe an environment as possible for our pupils, learners and members of staff. We will send out details of how this will affect your child over the forthcoming weeks.

If you have any questions or comments which you would like to raise, please do not hesitate to contact us on 0161 921 1404 for the school or 0161 707 1417 for Chatsworth Futures.

Thank you for your continuing support.

Regards,

Martin