Executive Principal’s Blog – 18.9.20: ‘Working Together as an Effective BMS Team’
As we come to the end of our third official week at Bushey Meads, I would like to thank all parents and carers for their hugely important role in supporting our superb school staying open. In this challenging time, we all have a responsibility to play our part and work together to ensure success. The Theme of the Week RESPONSIBILITY has been particularly pertinent!
At break and lunchtime and in lessons students are clearly very happy with all the arrangements we have put in place. Their greatest anxiety is not the virus and how well we have thoroughly organised and adapted all our routines and protocols, but it is the fear of having to self-isolate and miss even more school. On that note it is extremely important to ensure as parents and carers that you check carefully if your children are unwell. If they have Covid-19 symptoms they should not attend school. To support you with following the correct procedures please click on the link below for a helpful parent ‘COVID-19 Related Student Absence Guide’.
Covid-19 Related Student Absence Guide
If students do develop Covid-19 related symptoms in school they must report to the School Nurse or Pastoral Office immediately; they must not wait to go home at the end of the day and tell their parents.
As a school we are understandably receiving a few more emails and telephone calls from parents and carers than usual and, as we rightly focus on keeping the school safe and enabling all students to learn, we are not always able to respond to them as we would like.
If you have emailed the school with questions, queries or helpful suggestions as to how we can improve our provision even further, please understand that we will have carefully read the emails and noted any good ideas, but may not be able to respond directly. I know that you will all be very understanding with this. Do however look at our Covid-19 Frequently Asked Questions available on the website. This document will be updated each and every week and will reflect your concerns or great ideas to improve things further:
Covid-19 Frequently Asked Questions
I do want to thank all our hardworking staff especially our hugely experienced senior leaders and our three dedicated Health and Safety Representatives. They have been planning the September reopening for several months now.
Throughout the complex process specifically related to our context and school site, the planning team has also used a number of helpful union checklists to benchmark all decisions and has spent many days over the summer period carefully digesting the ever-changing documentation to ensure the school is safe.
Their outstanding work was strongly endorsed by the visit of Michaelene Holder-March who visited our school earlier this week. Michaelene is one of the Senior Infection Protection Control Nurses working within Public Health as part of the Health and Safety Management Team at Hertfordshire County Council and provided a very positive report on her detailed site visit with a few helpful suggestions to improve things even further. Further information about her visit is highlighted in this week’s BMS News.
We continue to work together as a very effective BMS Team.
I wish you all a very happy weekend; as always do click on the usual link to read our latest BMS News.
Jeremy Turner
Executive Principal
