RW/GB

1^st February 2007

Dear Parents,

It is highly unusual to close the school and extremely rare to have to close during the school day so I believe an explanation is in order for the decision to send children home yesterday.

We ran out of the oil needed to heat the main building because of a faulty gauge which showed oil levels as sufficient. We were therefore caught unawares with a delivery scheduled for sometime on Wednesday. Esso promised to treat us as a priority case and were as good as their word.

With back up heaters we were able to keep the classrooms above the minimum acceptable working temperature and school continued as normal with only the library and small group room taken out of use. However, it was clear by mid morning that maintaining the legal temperatures would be harder as the day went on and I took the decision to send home children being taught in the main building, allowing us to use the mobile classrooms for others and concentrating the back up heaters in one infant classroom. This was a successful plan and school continued for 74 children in the afternoon.

The oil arrived before lunchtime but the heating system was not fully functioning again until nearly three o’clock. The engineers have promised to replace the faulty gauge as a matter of priority so, although I cannot promise that the same thing won’t happen again, it is highly unlikely we will be affected to such a degree.

I realise it was inconvenient for some parents but I hope you agree that, taking into account the needs of the children, it was the only possible decision. As always, we ensured that where we could not make contact with parents we kept the children safe and under supervision. Pupils in classes in the mobile classrooms were unaffected.

I welcome the return to routine.

Yours sincerely,

Roger Whitewick

Headteacher.