Dear parent/ guardian,
I am emailing to update you on our latest plans for the current heatwave and red weather warnings for tomorrow (Wednesday 24th June) and Thursday (25th June). We have been undertaking and updating dynamic risk assessments following Welsh Government and Local Authority guidance and discussions with Local Authority Officers, throughout the day. At the time of writing, 2.50pm, Cathays High School are planning to remain open tomorrow and Thursday with a number of mitigations to reduce risk in place, including re-rooming some lessons to cooler areas of the school, providing indoor spaces at break and lunchtime for shade and making adjustments to certain areas of the curriculum. We will continue to monitor the guidance that comes from Welsh Government and the Local Authority and will let you know if the plan to remain fully open changes as soon as is possible.
I appreciate that some parents may be concerned for the health and wellbeing of their children in the extreme heat of the next two days, particularly if they suffer with chronic illnesses such as asthma. The school will support your decision around the health and wellbeing of your child (or children) over the next two days as you will be best placed to make that decision. Should your child be present in school please bear in mind the following considerations:
- Ensure they have a refillable water bottle to keep hydrated throughout the day. They can refill before school, at break, lunch and after school.
- Ensure they have sunscreen to protect exposed areas of skin from the sun
- Ensure they have a hat to protect them from the sun when outside.
I would like to thank parents for their support around the uniform adjustments made yesterday. The overwhelming majority of pupils arrived today either in their usual school uniform minus blazers, jumpers, and ties or in their PE kit. This was extremely helpful to us in maintaining uniform standards and in helping us safeguard the community to ensure that only the correct pupils were on-site. A small number of pupils did not adhere to what we asked, and we have contacted as many of their parents as possible to clarify the situation. Again, I would ask for your help in ensuring that pupils either wear their modified school uniform or their PE kit (which can include plain black, white, or navy versions of the kit or the school-branded items) only. Please do reinforce this with your children this evening and before school tomorrow and help us to remind them that the uniform adjustments do not mean a lack of focus on work or a relaxation of classroom and school rules.
During lunchtime today, and again at break and lunch tomorrow we will be stopping pupils from playing ball games in line with the guidance we have received to avoid them over-heating. We would be grateful if you could help us to reinforce the reason for this in your conversations at home this evening. We have also cancelled some planned trips which affects a small number of pupils as they were due to be outdoors for large periods of the day. Again, this is an effort to reduce risk to children and staff. We have also cancelled after-school reflection this week (today, Thursday and Friday) to allow students to get home before the hottest part of the day.
Once again, I thank you for your support.
Kind regards
Stuart Davies
(Headteacher)
