Dear Parents and carers,

Happy New Year! This might seem a strange thing to say well into January, in what has already proved to be a challenging time, but we need to maintain a sense of hope.  I don’t know about you, but in the midst of the madness, I need to believe that at some point 2021 is going to be happy, or at least better for us than 2020.

Last weekend I wrote a letter to you all which went viral over the internet and was quoted by Sunday afternoon, in many of the online versions of the national papers. On Monday I was interviewed by ITV and was fleetingly featured on the news at 6pm and the Slough Express have released a follow up article online today.

This was all because I wrote a letter to our community, responding to the concerns raised by parents and school staff, questioning the return to school for primary aged children in Slough. So I am slightly nervous now about posting any future letters on our website.

However, Marish Academy Trust, remains committed to supporting our community in whatever possible during this crisis and so I outline our offer to you below:

• We undertake to make provision in school for the children of critical workers as long as we have the staff available to do this.

• We will also contact parents of children who are entitled to have a space in school for other reasons and I explain what we mean by this below.

• For all children who are not able to attend school, we will provide online learning and for those who have difficulty accessing the internet, we will provide packs and workbooks.

• Those of you whose children are entitled to free school meals will be provided with as food parcel or a voucher as soon as we can get this organised. If you are in need of support with food for your family regardless of your entitlement, please let us know and we will assist.

• As in the previous lockdown, we will endeavour to contact every family every week to check on your wellbeing and to offer any further help you might need. If you haven’t received a call from school as yet, please ring or email in so that we can check we have the correct contact details…