Dear All,

Parents of Year 8 - A Population

Dear Parents and Carers

Firstly, can I thank you for your patience while we dealt with the three positive cases that we became aware of at the weekend. Obviously, we do not want any of our students to miss out on their education, however, we also want to make sure that we keep everyone as safe as possible.

Today we have spoken at length with Public Health England about this emerging situation.

We have looked at the students involved, including their friendships and teaching groups, and have come to the decision that we will need to ask the A population to self-isolate for 10 days from their potential last contact with the positive cases, namely Friday 11th December.

This decision is based on the advice we have received from PHE and the information we have with regards to the students themselves.

To reassure you, whenever we receive notification of a positive case, we do go through a rigorous process of looking at friendship groups and the location of students within each of their classrooms on the seating plan plus a final check with their teacher to ensure we have accurately identified all students who have been 2 metres within the positive case for the 48 hours before onset.

In this case we believe that the cases may be linked by their friendships or positions within the class but that this should only affect the A population rather than all students across the whole year group.

I am really sorry to ask this in the final few days before Christmas but, as I say, we do want to make sure that everyone stays safe and that we don't want to see Covid take hold in our school as we have seen in some other school across the country. Remote Learning will now be available for those Year 8 Students who are isolating. Please find details on our website.

As disappointing as this will be for your child, given the circumstances you will understand why we have had to make this decision.

Many thanks for your patience and continued support.

Regards

Andrew Davis

Principal

Exmouth Community College

Parents of year 8 - B and C population

Firstly, can I thank you for your patience while we dealt with the three positive cases that we became aware of at the weekend. Obviously, we do not want any of our students to miss out on their education, however, we also want to make sure that we keep everyone as safe as possible.

Today we have spoken at length with Public Health England about this emerging situation.

At this point in time all of our the evidence we have gathered suggests that the current cases we know about are linked to students within the A population and not beyond that.

As you probably know we teach students in Year 8 in three populations, A, B and C. The tutor groups and teaching groups (students are currently mainly taught in tutor groups) from different populations DO NOT mix during lesson times and operate entirely separately. The populations do come together at breaks and to visit the dining hall, however, this is largely outside or socially distanced and tightly controlled when moving through the dining hall. Our current information is that some friends of the students who have tested positive are in other populations, however, we believe we have already tracked these friends down and asked them to self-isolate.

Therefore, on the basis of the evidence we currently have and advice we have received today from PHE we would therefore ask that you send your child back to school tomorrow to resume their studies. We are asking that only students in Population A continue to remain at home.

To reassure you, whenever we receive notification of a positive case, we do go through a rigorous process of looking at friendship groups and the location of students within each of their classrooms on the seating plan plus a final check with their teacher to ensure we have accurately identified all students who have been 2 metres within the positive case for the 48 hours before onset.

Please be aware that this is potentially emerging situation and so we will keep the situation under constant review. Should circumstances change and we believe the level of risk to your child has changed we will act quickly to keep everyone as safe as possible.

Many thanks once again for your patience and continued support and we look forward to welcoming your child back to school tomorrow.

Regards

Andrew Davis

Principal

Exmouth Community College

All parents/all carers

Dear Parents and carers

As you may be aware over the weekend, we were notified of three positive cases within Year 8. We were only made aware of the last of these cases on Sunday night after Public Health England (PHE) had closed and so to err on the side of caution we asked Year 8 to stay at home today while we thoroughly assessed the contacts and links between the cases and spoke to PHE to get some advice.

At this moment, the evidence suggests that all three cases are linked to one student population within Year 8 and so we have asked that population to stay at home and self-isolate from tomorrow. We have asked the other two populations to return to school tomorrow and resume their studies.

To reassure you, whenever we receive notification of a positive case, we do go through a rigorous process of looking at friendship groups and the location of students within each of their classrooms on the seating plan plus a final check with their teacher to ensure we have accurately identified all students who have been 2 metres within the positive case for the 48 hours before onset.

We take our responsibilities for keeping all students, staff and our community safe from Covid very seriously and I hope this quick action to keep the year group at home for the day reassures you that we will do everything possible to maintain a safe and secure environment.

Many thanks once again for your patience and continued support and we look forward to welcoming your child back to school tomorrow.

Regards

Andrew Davis

Principal

Exmouth Community College