Hill Park School

This whole school risk asssessment is for parents, staff, therapists, transport providers and all stakeholders of the school.

Guidance for parents and carers on what they need to know about early years providers, schools and colleges in the autumn term.

24th June 2020 

Re: Home to School Transport

We wanted to write to you all in light of the ongoing difficulties we are all experiencing following the Covid-19 pandemic firstly to assure you all that we are continuing to work very closely with our partners including staff and governors of Hill Park School, the SEN Team and our colleagues in social care and that together we are doing everything we can to ensure the continued smooth running of our service during this most challenging of times. 

The second thing we wanted to say is that we welcome parent and carer contact with our service and to urge you, if you have any queries, concerns or comments, - good or bad – regarding our service to please do get in touch with us.  Please be assured we will always listen to what you have to say, that we want to hear your views, we want to hear how we are doing and we want to hear what we can do to make our service even better.

Our phone number is 01273 293501 and our phones are answered from 07:00 to 17:00 Monday to Thursday and 07:00-16:30 on Fridays.  We can also be contacted via email at HometoSchoolTransport@brighton-hove.gov.uk.

Best wishes and we look forward to hearing from you soon,

The Home-to-School-Transport Team

1st June 2020

Government guidance for parents and carers in respect of what you need to know about schools and other eduation settings during the coronavirus outbreak can be found at:

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/closure-of-educational-settings-information-for-parents-and-carers

April 17th 2020

Hill Park School remains closed next week except for emergency childcare for a very low number of pupils. The country is still in lockdown and government advice has not changed on the re-opening of schools.

We need to continue to keep the school community safe whilst the peak of infection occurs and the government relaxes restrictions. 

Along with other Heads and the Local Authority we continue to monitor the advice for schools and also await the advice specific to special schools that was due to be published last week. 

Please be assured that we do not underestimate the huge impact school closure is having on your lives and that we want to regain normality as soon as it is safe to do so. We hope you are all remaining well. 

Kind Regards,

Rachel Burstow -  Executive Headteacher

April 3^rd 2020

Dear Parents and Carers, 

It's time to take stock now that we are 2 weeks i to an unprecedented time for our school and the country. We have had to change the way we work as a community in a very short period of time and I hope that you are feeling you are getting support from us, whether in school or remotely. 

We know that some of you have been ill and this has been a very frightening time for you. If you do end up in hospital and you would like support from us to explain your child's needs etc then please contact us. 

Phone and Email Contact 

We hope that you are finding the contact the school is making whether by phone or email supportive. We are definitely not checking up to add pressure about how home learning is going - although we love to hear what you have been doing if you have chosen to work at home. 

We are making contact because we care about you and also because we have a statutory duty to all the children on our roll to ensure they are safe and well, even if they are not in school. 

Many families have found these call supportive and are pleased to talk to someone other than their child but please do not allow these calls to become something you dread. If they are something you are struggling with please talk to us rather than not answering an email or phone call , as that then becomes a cause for concern for us. 

When we call from our own phones we will block the number as per the Local Authority guidelines, so if you get a call with Number Witheld or No Caller ID it may well be us!

Monday 6th April - Friday 17th April after are officially the Easter holidays and is this means that there will be some changes in communication, please do not expect Teachers to be contacting you over the two week holiday. 

If you need us we are still here though so please email any of the following if you need any support over this period

• karenparker@hillpark.brighton-hove.sch.uk (Family Support Worker) 
• rachelburstow@hillpark.brighton-hove.sch.uk (Head Teacher) 
• clarelanghorne@hillpark.brighton-hove.sch.uk (Head of Secondary)
• megandavies@hillpark.brighton-hove.sch.uk (Head of Primary)
• marinabrewerton@hillpark.brighton-hove.sch.uk (Head of wellbeing, behaviour and safeguarding)

  E Safety Advice from the DFE 

As the country's children are spending more time online at the moment the DFE has created the following links to support parents and carers

·         Thinkyouknow (advice from the National Crime Agency to stay safe online)

·         Internet matters (support for parents and carers to keep their children safe

          online                              

·         Parent info (support for parents and carers to keep their children safe online)

·         LGfL (support for parents and carers to keep their children safe online)

·         Net-aware (support for parents and careers from the NSPCC)

Free School Meals 

The LA is working with a company named Edenred to distribute a voucher, to be sent electronically, for £15 per week to all families who access Free School meals. 

This will be £15 per child and it will start after the Easter holidays.

As yet Hill Park has yet to receive it's registration email despite daily contact with the company dispensing the vouchers. 

I want to reassure you that we will continue to resolve this and that I have made the Local Authority aware. If you have children in other Brighton and Hove schools you will probably have already received your information so apologies. 

If you are entitled to free school meals but you have not accessed them before because your child has not been willing or able to eat the meals/ packed lunches on offer, you might want to access the voucher as you will be able to buy the foods your child likes. If you are now interested please email:  sarahchaston@hillpark.brighton-hove.sch.uk 

We are missing all of you and we wish all of you a safe Easter period. There is a collective sense of anxiety and dread at the moment which is very hard to bear. I sent this link to staff this week and hope that you may find it useful too.

https://www.mind.org.uk/information-support/coronavirus/coronavirus-and-your-wellbeing

https://www.mind.org.uk/

Please keep in touch and stay safe and well. 

Rachel Burstow & all the staff at Hill Park School