Dear Parents,

Due to the recent increases in the number of positive cases within the El Alsson community, we have reluctantly decided to ask all students to work online for the remainder of this week. All students will return to in-school learning on Tuesday 6th April, following the Western Easter long weekend.

This decision comes after careful consideration of a number of factors including:

• Household cases amongst our student-body
• Many class groups closed due to positive cases
• Student absence running at some 40% across the school.
• High levels of Staff absence across the school, both educational and administrative
• Our teachers are reaching their limits in trying to teach in school, trying to teach on-line and covering the 50+ colleagues who are absent today. Quality learning both on-site and online is suffering.
• The need to maintain overall school health in advance of the upcoming exam season (British, AP, Ministry) which impacts a vast number of students

 

Students will continue to follow their usual schedules for the coming week, and your child’s divisional leadership will send a separate communication to confirm online learning details.

This is an opportunity for the school and our community to reduce the impact of Covid 19 on and within our community. We strongly urge all parents, students and staff to adhere to the following guidance during this brief online learning period and the holiday weekend:

• Avoid social gatherings (parties, play-dates, training, social activities within clubs, extended family gatherings, etc.)
• Maintain social distancing and wear face masks at all times when outside your home

We thank the vast majority of students, parents and staff whose diligent attention to safety guidelines have helped to ensure our school has stayed safe up to this point. We are very proud of our response to Covid 19 this school year, but reluctantly feel that given the significant increase in cases in our community, we have been left with little option but to move the whole school online for the remainder of the week.

We are confident that this short period away from campus, combined with a diligent approach to health and safety by all of our community, will allow us to return to school on the 6th of April and maintain on-campus learning for the remainder of this term.

Kind Regards,

Colin Rogers, Soumaya Amr, Karim Rogers, Allison Fleet and Matt Topliss

School Directors and School Principals