Thank you for all your kind words this week, we have really appreciated the great feedback in such difficult circumstances. I will try and keep this brief as we go into half-term when hopefully you will have some time to rest and reflect with the family.

Confirmed Cases of COVID-19

We have two confirmed cases of COVID-19 in our school and we wish these young people a speedy recovery – no further cases have been confirmed yet.  We have notified everyone who needs to self-isolate as a result of these cases.  I wanted to share the process for deciding on ‘close contacts’ from Public Health England the Department for Education so that you can understand how we decide who should self-isolate. We are instructed to measure a 2m boundary around each infected person and include anyone sitting in a classroom within that boundary, we also have to talk to the infected person and ascertain where they have been in school at social times and on the bus if appropriate.  A close contact is also someone who has been within a metre of the infected person for a minute or longer – this means that fleeting conversations inside a building also count, for example just stopping to chat.

If you are awaiting the outcome of a test for one of our young people please contact us as soon you have a positive outcome, even if this in half-term. We would prefer to be ready to identify close contacts rather than take chances when we are back in school.

• Half-term contact for positive tests only: 07912 259118 – this will be picked up by a member of staff who can alert the team. After half-term we will revert to our normal school number and email addresses.

We are expecting everyone back in school on 2^nd November as current self-isolation will be over.  Please continue to send all your children and young people to school, we need them here so that we can continue to teach and they can learn.  I hope that Y10 and Y11 were able to access online teaching for the last two days – we have monitoring attendance at those live lessons through TEAMS – it has been really good.

Could I also ask that you continue to send children and young people with a mask each day – we are currently supplying disposal masks but it is becoming very expensive and we have no extra budget for these costs.

Help with IT

A parent has recommended the following charity who are in Glossop. They refurbish donations from large companies and individuals and then donate them to the community. If you need a PC, laptop/mobile/Tablet they may be able to help. Their website is https://pcrefurb.org.uk/

Catering systems

We have had to replace our current tills for the kitchens with a cashless system. This means that we will no longer have the ability to use cash in school to top up students’ account.  We recommend downloading the Wisepay App and further details can be found here https://www.hopevalley-chorustrust.org/wisepay Usernames/Passwords are available from our finance department by emailing or calling the team. We thank you for your cooperation with this method of payment.

Finally, thank you again for all your positive messages. I have shared all these with staff who are equally grateful.  Enjoy half-term whether you are working or taking some time out.

Kind regards,

Gaynor Jones
Principal of Hope Valley College