10th September 2020 – 16:00
Dear Parents and Carers,
As you are aware, we had to take the hard decision today to send our students home. Please rest assured that this is in no way related to Covid-19.
At ca.11.30am, our fire alarm sounded and we actioned a full evacuation of our school building. It very quickly became clear that there was firstly no emergency or fire in school and secondly the activation of the alarm was not a malicious act by any member of the school community. We were made aware that the fire alarm had been activated as a result of a technical issue in a specific part of the school building. Whilst the system was reset and we began to send students back into school, the alarm was activated once again due the same technical fault.
Students were again evacuated to the playground whilst we investigated this. Please pass on my thanks to your children as they coped with this in a very mature and responsible way, as they will have been outside at this point for more than twenty minutes.
It was necessary to disable the alarm system and await the arrival of an alarm engineer and we were advised this may take up to two hours. We take our duty care to all members of our community very seriously and we cannot consider keeping our students in school without a fully functioning alarm system, so we therefore had no choice but to arrange for students to be dismissed and sent home.
We immediately alerted parents via text message and shared a brief letter via our website and social media channels. Students were dismissed from the fire evacuation points back to form groups and then our year team staff moved around all form groups and informed students of the developments. Lunches were also made available to all students who were eligible for a free school meal and a safe waiting area was provided for any student who needed to stay on site for any reason.
I have already arranged a meeting with Interserve Facilities Management who are responsible for the management of our building, to reduce the risk of any repeat of this in future. The site engineer arrived at 2.45pm and has now rectified the problem.
I am pleased to confirm that we will be open to all students as usual on Friday 11th September and students should arrive at their usual times, as they have been all week. Thank you all for your patience, co-operation and understanding as we navigate situations like this together.
Yours faithfully,
Mr P Shackleton
URGENT NOTICE
10th September 2020 – 12:30
We are currently experiencing a fault on our fire alarm system, which will require the system to be disabled before it can be repaired. As we are unable to operate without a fully functioning fire alarm system we have had to take the unfortunate decision to send students home with immediate effect.
Any students who are unable to get home we will keep in school in a safe and secure place until such time that you are able to collect (3pm at the latest).
