Etherton Education – Coronavirus (COVID-19) Update, 29 April 2020
We hope this update finds you well during this testing time. We firstly want to send our best wishes out to you, your teams and your families. We hope you are all keeping well and coping with the current situation.
Following our last Coronavirus (COVID-19) update in March, we wanted to update you again on how Etherton Education is looking for the summer of 2020.
At present, we are still planning for all of our academic summer courses to take place as long as it is safe for both our staff and students. We are monitoring the situation very carefully and will only proceed if the Government and World Health Organisation permit us to do so.
Just as the Government is unable to predict the virus and lock-down here in the UK, we are not yet able to predict the next two months before our courses are due to start. All of these things need to happen before we will be able to run our courses as planned this year:
- UK Government lifts the lock-down here in the UK.
- UK Schools, both state and independent, are able to re-open.
- English UK confirms English Language Schools are able to re-open.
- UK Visa Application Centres re-open.
- International air travel gets back to normal.
Each of these stages will need to be reached in order for our courses to take place. The current lock-down here in the UK is due to end in two weeks when the Government will be able to advise if we are able to start to lift the restrictions.
When it is advised UK schools can open again, we imagine there will be guidelines released which will provide further clarity of how they are able to open again. We cannot say for definite but are currently considering what variations we may have to implement in all areas of our courses. To provide a general overview, the main areas we are studying are as follows:
- Boarding Houses – single rooms or twin rooms only, bathroom usage rotas, kitchen and common room rotas.
- Walking Around Campus – restrictions on movement, timetables evolved to limit travel between classrooms.
- Assemblies / Classes – limits of students, student distancing on tables / chair placements.
- Meal Times – rotas for meals, student seating arrangements.
- Trips – transport available, student seating arrangements on transport, places able to reopen, restrictions on student groups for social distancing in places.
- Social Activities – updating activities for social distancing measures.
- Sports – what sports are able to be played, restrictions for contact sports.
- Cleaning – increased cleaning in all areas of the school, including boarding houses, bathrooms, classrooms, office areas, grounds, equipment.
- Personal Protection Equipment – what needs to be supplied.
- Teaching Staff – guidelines for teachers on teaching styles.
The UK is behind some other European countries in the cycle of the virus. In the next few weeks we will be watching closely their progress in trying to come out of lock-down, and re-open their schools, sports and shops. If things go well, this will hopefully allow us to run our courses.
If you, or your clients, have any questions at all please do not hesitate to contact our admissions team. Click HERE to send them an email directly.
We very much hope the situation improves worldwide very soon and our thoughts are with all of those affected by this. Stay well and stay safe.
Peter Etherton
Director, Etherton Education
Article, 29 April 2020.