Boarding parents are rightly concerned about what might happen if there's a second wave of infections, and about how we're going to ensure that the boarding houses are kept safe.
Our plans so far are as follows:
- Be prepared for boarders to come back early at the beginning of the term in order to sit out their quarantine. We'll facilitate this either by laying on our own in-house quarantine (if feasible) or by supporting boarders in state quarantine remotely.
- Social distancing all dormitories - we're working on a maximum of two per room at the outset.
- Keeping visitors outside a 'cordon sanitaire' around the boarding village.
- Supplying hand-sanitisers in multiple locations around the boarding village.
- Providing staff and pupils with face-masks.
- Social distancing all the tables and chairs in the dining room and staggering meal times such that there is never a large number of pupils all arriving at the same time.
- Increasing the cleaning routines in all the boarding areas.
- Providing face masks and gloves to all those working in the laundry.
- Leaving high-traffic doors open so that hand-surface contact is minimised.
- Restricting the number of boarders in the gym and sports hall in the evenings.
- Disabling our biometric finger scanners to reduce touch surfaces.
- Putting provision in place for remaining open over October half-term in case overseas boarders can't get home.
Advice is changing all the time, so we're also remaining flexible. The old adage: 'Plan early, plan twice' rings true in this case.
We're confident though that if we're able to re-open we'll be able to do so safely.