Following government guidelines, all members of staff will have the opportunity to take Lateral Flow Tests for coronavirus from Monday 25th January. They will do this twice a week, on Mondays and Thursdays, and the results are available quickly. We have been asked to do this to limit the spread of coronavirus in the community, as it will pick up any asymptomatic cases (currently estimated to be 1 in 3 people who are infected but do not have any symptoms).

We are telling you about this because if a test returns positive, then bubbles will have to be closed for 10 days or until the staff member gets a negative test from a laboratory (PCR test). All members of the bubble will need to isolate. This could happen at very short notice - first thing in the morning - so it is important that you have some sort of contingency plan in place for childcare in case this happens. Closed bubbles will switch completely to remote learning, so make sure you have your child’s login details ready. These were sent to you in the Autumn Term. If you cannot find these, you can contact your child’s class teacher. Teachers' email addresses are here. It's a good idea to try logging in to Google Classroom now (if you haven't already) so your child is prepared for accessing remote learning.

If certain staff members (or more than one) test positive, this could enforce a whole-school closure, as directed by Public Health England. Depending on the situation, we may also have to close for a number of days to have the site professionally deep cleaned. In these cases, we would still switch to remote learning.

If the school office has to close, you can still email in using the office@codnor.derbyshire.sch.uk address, or the address of your child’s teacher. Depending on the time of day, other staff members may be available to answer a phone outside the office, but this will take longer to answer, so please let it ring.

If a bubble has to close, we will publish the information on the front page of the website. You can check that now – look for the text 'BUBBLE STATUS'. We will then send texts to those parents affected. If you have recently changed your phone number, please contact us to keep us up to date.

Thank you all for your support and understanding during these trying times.