Dear Parents and Carers

As you will be aware, the advice from Central Government is to close schools from this Friday afternoon 20 March 2020. All teachers have prepared learning packs to support your children through the first two weeks leading up to the Easter Holidays. If, as expected, the school closures are to continue beyond the Easter Holidays, teachers will upload further work/activities/guidance on to the school  website    http://stmatthewsjarrow.co.uk/parents/home-learning/

All schools will be working closely with South Tyneside Council to address these additional requests from the Government ;

• to provide support for vulnerable children and their families
• to provide meals/vouchers for families eligible for Free School Meals
• to provide a day care service for children of ‘KEY’ workers

As soon as we have any details relating to the above categories we will contact families directly to ensure they are made aware of the offers available to them.

Staff at St Matthew’s work tirelessly to ensure we provide the best for our family community and we appreciate your cooperation and support. I would ask you to bear with us as we get our heads around how best to address today’s announcements from Central Government. Our Administration staff (Mrs Young and Mrs Thomas) will try to help with all queries but please understand they may not always have the answer at that point in time.

St Matthew’s School will close to all pupils on Friday at 2.30pm PLEASE NOTE THE CHANGE OF TIME!

All children will have their Learning Packs to take home at this point. If your child is absent on Friday their pack will be available for collection from the School Office between 2.45pm and 3.15pm .

PLEASE note there will be NO NATIONAL TESTING (SAT’s) in Year 6 this year and it looks as if all data usually required from other year groups will not need to be tested and reported (ie Year 1 Phonics Screening, Year 2 end of KS1 SAT’s, Year 4 Multiplication Tables Testing).

Details of how school will continue to operate during this period of closure will be published soon along with important contact details.

Thank you for your cooperation and patience during these challenging, unprecedented and worrying times for us all.

God’s Blessings on you all.

Martin G Humble

Headteacher