IMPORTANT PRECAUTIONARY NOTICE:

Hot Weather Measures for This Week

Dear Parents and Carers,

With high temperatures forecast for this coming week, we are writing to inform you of the proactive, precautionary measures we are putting in place to protect our school community.

As you know, our school occupies a beautiful older building, but it does possess limited modern ventilation in any form. When spaces are full during heatwaves, our classrooms can become exceptionally warm; up to 36 bodies in cramp spaces has its impact. 

Please be completely reassured that our team will be working tirelessly to implement every reasonable step to keep the building cool, including opening windows early to purge heat, keeping blinds fully drawn, and turning off all non-essential electrical equipment.

Please note that all operational decisions made by Ashgate Primary School are guided strictly by our internal Risk Assessment, Department for Education (DfE) safety frameworks, and localised Met Office data. The school does not react to media hype or general consensus; our actions are based entirely on measured, site-specific safety parameters.

To support our data-led safety efforts, please ensure the following sensible precautions are taken:

• Clothing: Standard school uniform is suspended. Please send your child to school in lightweight sporting attire or their school PE kit (light-coloured t-shirts and athletic shorts) to facilitate comfort and thermoregulation.

• Hats & Sun Cream: Please apply high-factor sun cream before school and send your child with a wide-brimmed sun hat. Our staff will be actively checking for these items. Where a child does not have a hat, the school will, where possible, provide one and will ensure they utilise shaded areas as much as practically possible.

• Site Monitoring & Last-Resort Measures: We will be tracking classroom thermometers hourly. A partial or early site closure would only ever be considered as a strict last resort, after all other reasonable mitigation steps have been completely exhausted.

We are tracking the hourly Met Office timeline closely. In the highly unlikely event that emergency measures or an early closure become necessary due to indoor environments remaining consistently above 28°C despite all our cooling measures, we will communicate this to you with as much advance notice as humanly possible via our text and app alert system to ensure you can make childcare arrangements.

Thank you for your rapid cooperation and partnership in helping us take these sensible precautions.

Yours sincerely,

Mr Seargent