Head’s Lines: A plan to safely reopen our facilities

Head’s Lines: A plan to safely reopen our facilities This week our school will complete and submit to the MOE and OPEC our plan for reopening our school. Once reviewing our opening plans to keep our community safe from COVID-19 infections and inspecting our two campuses, we can then receive approval to open. A Hybrid Model will allow parents to decide where they want their children to learn from safely. As part of the school opening plan, every family needs to have completed their Health Declaration Form. Read more to see what a day at school will look like in High School and Primary School…

This week our school will complete and submit to the MOE and OPEC our plan for reopening our school. Once reviewing our opening plans to keep our community safe from COVID-19 infections and inspecting our two campuses, we can then receive approval to open. A Hybrid Model will allow parents to decide where they want their children to learn from safely. As part of the school opening plan, every family needs to have completed their Health Declaration Form. Read more to see what a day at school will look like in High School and Primary School…

This week our school will complete and submit to the MOE and OPEC our plan for reopening our school. 

Once they have reviewed our opening plans with regard to keeping our school community safe for COVID-19 infections, they will come and inspect our two campuses and then give approval to open. We hope this will be in the very near future.

Hybrid Model

When our school campuses re-open, parents will finally be able to send their children to school so that they can enjoy the learning environment with their teachers and friends. However, the Virtual School Experience (VSE) will remain in place so those families who wish to continue with their children learning at home can do so. 

The most important consideration for opening our physical doors is how to keep everyone as safe as we possibly can while learning together at school. The guidelines we have received for opening stresses the importance of regular testing for COVID-19 using the screening antigen test kits (ATK). From the MOE & OPEC guidelines provided to us, all staff and children coming to school must have an ATK test to screen for COVID-19 prior to arriving at school. This is aimed to create and safeguard a COVID-free learning environment in school and will mean each family will have to test their children regularly to screen for COVID-19.

A very important part of our opening plan is how to enact an effective testing protocol that can keep our whole school community safe. All staff at school would be tested using the ATK kits on Mondays and Wednesday of each week. 

During the initial 4 to 6 weeks of opening, all families will be requested to test their children with the ATK screening kits that are widely available from many shops and pharmacies. As with school staff, we would ask for testing to take place on Mondays and Wednesdays before school. 

Parents would date the negative ATK test result with a felt tip pen before photographing it. This would be saved by parents as evidence that their children were negative should it ever be required by the MoPH for tracking and tracing procedures. 

Parents would tick the negative test box on their parent Moodle account for each of their children. Doing so would automatically activate their swipe cards and allow them entry into school when they arrive later that morning. At present all children from Year 4 through to Year 13 already have swipe cards, and this will be expanded to include children from Year 1, Year 2 and Year 3. All students entering school will need their swipe cards activated in Moodle after their negative ATK tests each Monday and Wednesday.

High School

Similar to when the school last opened after a lockdown the High School, students will have a staggered entrance to school in the mornings with each Year Group given a time interval in which to arrive:
 

• Key Stage 3 students should arrive by 7:30 for registration;
• Key Stage 4 & 5 students should arrive by 7:45 for registration.

On arrival students would have their temperature taken and their swipe card activated before accessing the flap gates. As in Primary School, activation of the swipe card requires that students have had a negative ATK test at home prior to arriving at school. All students should go straight to their Tutor Bases when they arrive.

Anyone who either has an elevated temperature or whose card is inactive due to not registering a negative ATK test through Moodle that day would be directed to a large open-air tent with fans and socially distanced chairs. This tent would be erected near the school entrance, where students would have their temperature retaken and their parents contacted. Students whose temperature is normal and who has a negative ATK test would then be permitted to enter the school. Any students who are confirmed as having an elevated temperature or a positive ATK test will be escorted to an isolation room, where they will wait until they can be picked by their parents. Parents would then need to have their children take a PCR test to confirm their COVID status.

Please be aware that no parents will be allowed on site during Phase 1 of reopening unless they have a planned meeting with a member of staff.

Primary School

At our Primary campus, we shall set up an additional entrance for Year 2 to 6 into the blue hardcourt area where there will be swipe card facilities to allow children to easily pass into school.

FS1 and FS2 and FS3 parents who are fully vaccinated or have evidence of a negative ATK test will be able to enter the schools site through the entrance between the blue hardcourt and the sports hall before proceeding to hand over their children to the Teachers and Teacher Assistants.

Year 1 children will use the main school entrance meeting school staff just after they have swiped into school. The school staff will take these children to their area of the school for the start of their day.

There will be strict monitoring of students through seating plans and the staggering of activities, including entrance, exit and lunchtimes so that children will be able to be tracked throughout their day at school. Everyone on campus will be required to wear a mask and remain physically distanced. Appropriate hand washing facilities and sanitiser gel are available right across the school.

Health Declaration and Vaccination Survey

As part of the school opening plan that we will send to MoPH, MOE and OPEC, it is essential for every family to have completed their Health Declaration Form. Thank you to those families who have updated their information on this form from last week's newsletter. I ask that if you have not yet completed this information, please undertake this as soon as possible. The Health Declaration Form is available through your parent account on Moodle.

School community vaccination status

The level of vaccination within our school community will be another critical piece of information that we would collect as part of the campus opening plan. 

We are therefore asking everyone to fill in a vaccination survey through Moodle to let us know how many of the adults in your household are vaccinated. This should include anyone who regularly interacts with your children and/or takes them to school. Please note that you must be logged into Moodle with your parent account to complete this survey. This form also now has a new section where you can provide  information about the vaccination status of your children if they are aged between 12-18 years old.
Although we are still waiting on the important guidelines which will shape our reopening plan, we are moving forward with as many preparations as we can for a safe and successful launch. As soon as we have more information from the MOE, MoPH and OPEC, we will share details with everyone in our school community.
We shall continue to work closely with all of the government authorities to ensure that we put the necessary measures in place to allow our school to get full approval to open for classroom teaching.

For parents with enquiries, please contact support@standrews.ac.th. You can also call the Primary School directly at +66 2 381-2387-8 or the High School at +66 2 056-9555.