IMPORTANT COVID-19 MESSAGE FROM THE SPECIAL NEEDS PLAY-PROVISION TEAM:
OCTOBER HALF-TERM PLAY PROVISION
Our October half-term playscheme will be running but, due to Covid-19 protocols, we are unable to offer exactly the same provision for all of our families.
The Government and Local Authority guidelines dictate that:
- We are only permitted to have a maximum of 15 children per day.
- We are to keep them within their school ‘bubbles’ as much as we can.
However, it may prove prudent to create our own bubbles based on age ranges. In order for this to happen children will be allocated one day only (If your young person is attending Beechside in this week, we will not be able to accommodate them, as this will mean a crossover of bubbles.) Each bubble will be allocated one day at a venue. Parents will not be able to choose venue or day as we need to keep them to their educational bubble as much as possible. Parents must call or email the office to register their interest in a place.
As you can appreciate these two protocols make the organization and running of our playscheme sessions more complex. This means that our playscheme is likely to look very different to our usual provision.
As our usual venue is unavailable to us for this half term we have now agreed to the hiring of 2 venues that will be familiar to most of our young people, namely: Highbury Community Centre in Hawthorn Crescent, Cosham and Charles Dickens Community Centre in Lake Road, Landport.
The venues are only available for us to hire for the first three days of the week, namely: Monday 26th, Tuesday 27th and Wednesday 28th October. Unfortunately neither of these venues have the facilities for children with more complex needs (as they do not have a hoist / changing bed or an area that we could put one into).
The cost of this service will be £20 per day.
Due to social-distancing guidelines we will not be able to offer transport for this playscheme except in exceptional circumstances (in which case this must be discussed and agreed beforehand).
We are aware that this playscheme (and future playschemes for the fore-seeable future) will be a change for some of our families but the safety of our children and staff is paramount. Keeping them safe at these sessions shall also prevent any cross infection that could prevent them from attending school.
We look forward to welcoming the children and doing our best to make provision for as many as possible during these difficult times within the current guidelines and restrictions.
best wishes
The Special Needs Play-Provision Team
P.S. Our Play-Provision Report for Summer 2020 has just been published and will be available to the families of children who attended but if you want a sneak preview then click on the image below:
