Mr Fitzmaurice writes “Our schools are starting to welcome back their students and in addition to the three campuses in China that re-opened last week in Nantong, Ningbo and Nanjing, we have now also opened in Beijing (Shunyi), Guangzhou, NACIS Shanghai, Foshan and Puxi.” Remarking on the reopening of schools in the Far East where some have been closed for three months Mr Fitzmaurice then turns his attention a little closer to home “….schools are beginning to open their doors elsewhere and this week we welcomed the youngest of our students back in Prague and in Switzerland, Champitett and La Côte opened. We have also received news today that from 4th May we will start to welcome students into our schools in Vietnam and on 6th May Budapest will reopen.” Yesterday’s news here in Warsaw now means we join this list of school re-openings as we will be welcoming students in our four youngest years (Pre-Nursery, Nursery, Reception and Year 1) back to school next Wednesday.
Behind the scenes we have been preparing for school reopening under a variety of possible different circumstances or directives for many weeks. We had anticipated that this would begin with the youngest of our learners and we believe we are well prepared to welcome back these younger students next week. We will be operating as per the regulations communicated from the relevant Polish authorities although we will also be adding extra precautions and actions learnt from other Nord Anglia school openings and also, as advised by our Group and Regional Environmental Health & Safety teams.
We understand that some parents may not be able to send their children to school due to their current family location either out of country or significantly far away from Warsaw. We also understand that some parents will wish to keep their child at home for a while longer due to perhaps a family member in the house being at high-risk. Therefore we will continue to operate our Virtual School Experience until further notice for those children who are unable to attend school in person.
Kay Parker-McMahon, Head of our Dabrowskiego Early Years Campus, wrote to all Dabrowskiego parents last night asking them to complete a short questionnaire indicating their intentions for their child next week- are they returning or are they staying at home? along with a few questions about collection times and location of teaching.
Please can we ask (Early Year Parents only) you to fill in the form to tell us if your child will or will not return to the school campus next week and which campus you wish to use by Thursday 30th April 23:59. The link to the form is below:
https://bit.ly/2W8rg2q
We are trying to be as supportive as possible to those returning students and mindful of working parents and to reduce travel exposure we are offering lessons for Nursery, Reception and Year 1 at both Dabrowskiego and Limanowskiego. We are also offering the flexibility for all students to remain in school until 5pm if parents wish, to allow them as much time as possible to work from home under this ongoing challenging situation. Once we have a firm commitment on student numbers for next week’s reopening Mrs Parker-McMahon will be writing to all returning families on Monday with further guidance on timings and precautions plus extensive information on how we will be operating to minimize any further risk of infection on return. This information will be shared next week with the entire parent community so that you can better understand our approach to school reopening in anticipation of more children/year groups being allowed back to school over the coming month.
May I wish all of our community a wonderful Labour Day and 3rd of May Constitution Day weekend and trust that you enjoy the sunshine and fresh air whilst keeping safe and healthy. I look forward to welcoming our youngest children back to our campuses next Wednesday!
Alun Yorath
Principal