On Tuesday 8th December, the Department for Education (DfE) announced that schools could have some flexibility around the end of term, allowing us to change the last day of term (Friday 18th December) to an INSET day and so children would not attend.

The reason that they have suggested this is because of the role schools, are playing within the contact tracing to help in the national effort to limit the spread of COVID-19. This role has continuously been undertaken by schools, having had us ‘on-call’ over weekends and holidays, throughout the pandemic.

Having given this careful consideration, we have decided that St James will be taking this day as an INSET, we feel that this is in the best interests of the pupils, families and staff, this position is also supported by St Chad’s Academies Trust who are advising all academies within the trust to follow the Department for Education’s guidance. Therefore, our last day in school will be Thursday 17th December. The government’s decision to delay this announcement may cause extra inconvenience to parents and I apologise for that.

We ask that if your child develops symptoms in the first few days after school close and you get a test with a positive result, we ask that you continue to email to the school office to keep us up to date and we can take any relevant actions given to us by the DfE helpline: office@st-james.staffs.sch.uk

Emails are checked regularly but please do not expect an instant response. We really hope that we don’t have to make any contact, in relation to COVID-19, with our families after we close; we don’t want to have to be asking children or staff to stay at home self-isolating over Christmas but you do need to be mindful that there is a possibly that you may receive this information from school.

I’d like to take this opportunity to thank you for your vigilance and compliance towards the COVID-19 measure this term; it really is helping to keep our school community as safe as possible in these difficult times.

Thank you for your continued support.