Information for Families - August 2020

Our priority is to ensure the safety of the entire school community and to do so, we rely on the vigilance and cooperation of everyone.

The Autumn Term starts for all students on Thursday 27th August at 8.20am.

As you are aware from our partial reopening in June, we have already introduced extra cleaning, thermal scanning and other additional safety protocols. There will be a need to maintain and enhance these with a full return to site.

However, as mentioned in my previous communication, we would like to return to as much normality as possible.

We want your children to return to school safely and in a sustainable manner and will not be disregarding sensible safety precautions.

It is not possible to list everything and cover all scenarios but please read the below information prior to the 27th August.

Please read my mid-summer review communication for details.

Please be vigilant about the health of all family members.

Get in touch if there is anything you are not sure about:

medical@britannicaschool.hu

contact@britannicaschool.hu

All common symptoms below require 7 school days at home and must be reported immediately to the school nurse: medical@britannicaschool.hu

If more than two of these symptoms are observed, please do not attend Britannica. Please call a doctor and undertake two ‘at home’ Covid-19 tests.

• Fever
• Dry cough
• Unexplained and abnormal tiredness
• Loss of taste or smell
• Diarrhoea
• Vomiting

Students may return to school if two clear tests are evidenced.

It is important that only healthy students come to school.

All students should have temperatures checked at home before leaving for school.

If their temperature is over 37.5°C for the forehead, please keep them at home.

Secondary students must enter through the front gate.

Primary students must enter and be collected at the back gate

No parents or visitors will be allowed inside the school building without a prior appointment

An exception will be made for Year 1 parents for the Teddy Bear’s Picnic and for new parents on the first day of school.

All new parents will be temperature checked on entry (and refused entry if above 37.5 degrees). Parents must wear a mask.

Primary parents will be allowed to enter through the back gate and go to the upper playground for drop-off and pick up at the start and end of the school day. Until further notice, all parents must wear a mask.

All students will have their temperature checked using our thermal scanning cameras prior to entry in to our school building.

No students with a temperature above 37.5 degrees will be permitted to enter the school site.

Parents will immediately be called to collect and the student must not attend for a minimum of 7 school days.

Please follow our previous advice with regards to travel over the next few weeks.

We are guided by medical advice provided by the Hungarian Government’s protocols and WHO directives.

Masks

• Students in Early Years and Years 1 to 6 are not required to wear masks in school.
• Students in Years 7-13 are required to wear masks when moving between lessons.
• Students will not be required to wear masks in lessons or outside
• Any student wishing to wear a mask at any time will be supported in their wish.
• Parents and visitors are not allowed on site without an appointment. Should an appointment be arranged, masks must be worn at all times.
• Staff will be wearing masks when moving around the school site.

Other restrictions:

Secondary students are not allowed to use the garden corridor or Primary corridor. They must use the central ramp for access to room’s 5A/B/C, the Auditorium and room 28.

Primary students are not allowed to use the club area or secondary corridor unless they are escorted by a teacher to the library.

We have worked closely with our preferred bus provider, Premier, to ensure that students are safe on their buses. Please follow their guidance and contact them should you have any questions regarding their service: Premier Bus

The community worked well together during the closure. Staff, parents and students all upskilled themselves within the digital environment and are prepared for this situation.

If we need to switch across to digital learning again, we will, of course, communicate the need to do so and begin this immediately.

If the situation remains as it is in Hungary now when we open school, we will look to run our ECA programme using the normal structure. Providers will need to adhere to and sign-up to, our strict guidelines on contact with people from other countries, meaning that no one who has visited or been in touch with visitors from the countries on the Hungarian government’s red and yellow lists within the specified time-period will be allowed on campus. During this period, providers will be thermal scanned on entry and required to wear a mask in shared areas and corridors.

Please provide your child/children with a pencil case, so that we can minimize the need to share equipment. What is needed inside it will vary by age. Year 1-4 teachers will provide guidance to parents on what they need.

For Years 5 upwards:

• At least two pens for writing
• At least two pencils (HB) for writing/drawing
• 1 rubber
• 1 pencil sharpener
• I ruler
• Appropriate age relevant Maths equipment
• Highlighter pens
  

Year 1 and 2 will have their lunches in their classrooms until half term. This will help establish good eating routines and help nurture their ability to use a knife and fork.

Years 12 and 13 will ‘take-away’ their lunches to the club or terrace area.

Years 3-11 will have specific time periods for lunch ensuring numbers in the canteen remain small.

These measures, again, are aimed at returning a sense of normality to children’s school experience.

Until the October break, students should be in summer uniform, please see the Uniform Code on our website for details.

New parents also have the opportunity to order new uniforms directly from the school between 1.30 and 3pm on the 24th, 25th and 26th August 2020. Please come to the front entrance of the school.

If you are a new parent, your child’s House will be assigned in the first week, so please do not worry about having the correct colour top for PE.

There will be a familiarization session for Year 1 families on Wednesday 26th with our traditional Teddy Bears Picnic. Details below:

• Parents should stay for the duration of the event and will be allowed in school, but will need to wear masks.
• Everyone will need to hand sanitise on entry.
• Parents should arrive at 1.25pm on Wednesday 26th August at the front entrance to be collected by the admissions team.
• Juice, water and snacks will be provided in the Pirate Cove.
• Mrs Moreton (Head of Primary) and Miss Wolland (Head of KS1/Year 1 teacher) will lead the event and Mr Gardner (Year 1 teacher) plus Year 1 TAs will be present.
• The TP is not a parent information session. This session is about making the children feel comfortable. However, there is some time while children play and get to know each other for parents to ask some questions and Mrs Moreton and Miss Wolland will be available.

Timings for the Teddy Bear Picnic

13:15 - 13:30 arrive at the front of school for scanning and entry

13.30 - Introduction in the auditorium

14.00 - activities and snacks in the pirate cove

14.45 - activities in classrooms

15.30 - end of event

All other Year groups

First Day

The school year starts at 8.20am on Thursday 27th August 2020. All students should arrive prior to this time.

As mentioned earlier, Parents of new students will be allowed on site but must pass through our thermal imaging test and wear a mask.

We welcome all new families joining Britannica International School!

In the following section you will find important information that you may need for a smooth start. Should you have any questions that are not covered below please contact us via e-mail on contact@britannicaschool.hu or call the School Office on 06-1-466-9794.

Primary pupils:

(Year 1 – Year 6)

All School equipment, books and stationery will be provided by the School. However, there are a few things they need to have in addition, which should be LABELLED with the child’s name:

• A school bag large enough to hold A4 paper
• A pair of indoor shoes to be kept at the School for wearing inside the classroom (black or dark blue or brown).
• Painting apron (such as an old long sleeved shirt)
• A change of clothing, including undergarments, to be kept at School, just in case they are required. Necessary for Key Stage 1 pupils (Year 1 and 2)
• Water bottle
• Pencil case
• Metal mathematical compasses for pupils in Years 5 and 6

We are trying to encourage independence so please allow your child to pack and carry their own bags.

Secondary pupils:

(Year 7- Year 13)

The School provides secondary students with all the schoolbooks and notebooks. Parents are asked to provide a fully equipped pencil case and mathematical equipment such as metal compasses, protractor and scientific calculator. Metal compasses and calculators can be purchased from the Mathematics and ICT department in school.

Please keep in mind that wearing the Britannica uniform is compulsory in the school building. Since the uniforms are hard to distinguish, we highly recommend that you LABEL all uniforms with your child’s name, so if it gets lost in the building, it gets back to your child as soon as possible. During the current period, the lost and found will be placed outside the front entrance at regular intervals, for parents to check..

Please find information about the uniform code and ordering guidelines on our website.

School Finishes at 3:30 for ALL students.

The British Curriculum outlines which subject’s children must study at School and also divides them into age groups called Key Stages. At each Key Stage, all children in mainstream education will study certain subjects and have the opportunity to learn key skills, following the requirements of the British Curriculum.

The Key Stages are as follows:

• Key Stage 1 (KS1): Years 1 and 2
• Key Stage 2 (KS2): Years 3, 4, 5 and 6
• Key stage 3 (KS3): Years 7, 8 and 9
• Key stage 4 (KS4): Year 10 and Year 11
• Key Stage 5 (KS5) also referred to as 6th Form: Year 12 and Year 13

For safety reasons children should not arrive before 08.00 or be left unattended in an unsupervised area. The School provides supervision on the upper playground from 08.00. Classrooms are open for children from 08.20.

Primary pupils line up on the upper playground and are collected by their class teachers or teaching assistants.

The School Day starts at 08.20 with registration.

School ends at 15.30 for all students.

Various After School clubs will be running at the end of every school Day – more information below.

Late pick-up area: For those children whose primary parents cannot come on time (by 15.30) because of circumstances beyond their control, there is a supervision classroom near the primary KS2 corridor where a member of staff looks after the children until 17:00. Please come to the front of school and the office staff will call the late pick up room for your child to be sent to the front entrance to meet you.

COVID-19 Delivery and Collection

In order to keep the school community safe, we require parents to remain outside the school building both for pick-up and collection of their children. For Primary students, parents will be able to drop off and collect their children from the upper playground.

KS1 parents will be able to accompany their children to the classrooms for the first few weeks. However, they must wear a mask. Entrance and Exit must be via the lower playground entrance.

Late pick-up is, as described above.

A hot lunch is provided for all students attending the School. Please inform the school office if your child has any dietary requirements or would like to receive vegetarian meals. Eating in the corridors is prohibited. Morning snacks are provided to classes in Year 1, 2 and 3, and are eaten in the form rooms. Lunch and morning snacks are included in the school fees. A snack bar is also operating in the cafeteria daily between 08.00 – 16.00, During this period, it is only open to secondary students. Primary students in years 4-6 are invited to bring their own snacks.

Sweets/candy and chocolate should be avoided with preference for healthier snacks, which are best for good learning.

Pupils should bring in a ‘named’ plastic drinking bottle with a nozzle, containing still water. Children are able to drink the water throughout the day.

Drinks such as water, squash or milk may be brought in for snack time. No fizzy drinks are allowed. These should be placed into a suitable container, which should be labelled with your child’s name for ease of independence and identification. They must not be shared with other students.

We normally hold a Secondary assembly on Mondays in our Auditorium at 9:05 and on Fridays for Primary at 08.35. There will be a few ‘special’ assemblies being presented by a Year group at various times during the year. All parents are more than welcome to attend any assembly; parents of the students taking part in a ‘special’ assembly will receive a written reminder one week prior to the Assembly.

During the first half term, we will continue with our virtual assemblies, via Zoom. Parents will be sent a Zoom code and can ‘join’ the assembly remotely.

Each student joining Britannica is placed into one of our four Houses, Fire, Water, Earth and Air. The idea behind the House system is that there is a vertical and even split of the children, Primary and Secondary into the four Houses. These Houses compete against each other in all kinds of ways; sporting, academic and even in entertainment (with quiz shows and the like). The aim for all the students in Britannica is to build up points for their Houses every day, every week and every month and also by playing for their House teams against other Houses in sports or in other competitions. The School year is divided into three termly championships and at the end of each term there is a cup for the winning House and a token prize for all the members of that House.

Currently, all students have to wear the house polo shirt for all House events and PE lessons– these can be purchased online from the School uniform shop; the colour of the polo shirt should be chosen according to the particular House the student belongs to: (Air – yellow, Fire – red, Water – dark blue, Earth – green).

During the first few weeks of term all students will be informally assessed for English ability levels by our English as an Additional Language (EAL) staff in order to plan appropriate language support throughout the School year. You will be kept fully informed of any decisions made about additional support being offered.

Britannica offers various extra-curricular activities. Some afternoon activities are taught by Britannica staff at no extra cost however there will be a charge for other activities where the lessons are held by external specialist instructors (e.g. Dance, Drama Club, Pottery, etc.). In these cases the payments go directly to the instructors.

We will be sending out a full set of details during the week of 1st September on the ECA’s taking place for both primary and secondary students. We will share this with you via email with instructions on how to sign up electronically. Parents of primary students are expected to take responsibility for doing this but secondary students will be expected to manage this via their school email account which will be shared with them when they arrive.

The Britannica Instrumental Programme is a scheme to encourage students to take up learning an instrument at school. Individual instrumental music lessons are available for students from Year 2 and upwards. We have a team of recommended visiting instrumental teachers who teach violin, clarinet, saxophone, recorder, flute, guitar, voice, piano and theory. Students can sign up to receive a weekly thirty minutes lesson on an instrument of their choice.

These lessons are arranged during the academic day or after school. An email will be sent to you regarding the sign up procedure when term begins.

Every student attending a school in Hungary is entitled to get a Hungarian Student ID. This card can be used for many things, and it is particularly important for getting discounts on public transport, in museums and at many other places. If you would like to order one, please contact the School Office via e-mail (contact@britannicaschool.hu) or telephone (06/1/466-9794). Under the following link you can find a description of the application in English and Hungarian. Please keep in mind that the whole procedure takes a few weeks, so you might want to send your application in time.

We are a truly family-orientated school therefore, ensuring smooth communication between parents and the School is very important for us.

A weekly newsletter is sent out every Friday by e-mail to all parents. This newsletter outlines events that concern the school and also reports on general items of interest. Urgent items are occasionally sent out during the week by e-mail and repeated in Friday’s newsletter. Please provide the School Office with your most recent contact details and make sure that if your telephone number or e-mail address changes to inform the School Office of this.

Parents’ Afternoons will be held in first and second terms. On these occasions parents can meet with teachers and discuss the progress of their child’s work.

Individual meetings can be also arranged with teachers if necessary. Each member of staff also has their own Britannica e-mail address for direct contact. Parents wishing to discuss academic or social matters outside of these scheduled parent-teacher meetings should contact the form tutor or class teacher in the first instance, followed by the Key Stage Coordinator or appropriate Head of Primary or Head of Secondary.

Following Parent feedback in the summer term, we will be making some changes to increase the frequency of contact with parents regarding their child’s academic achievements and progress this year. You will receive a progress report in Term 1 and 2, which can then be discussed at the parent’s afternoons and a full written report in Term 3.

The Britannica Parents and Staff Association is a very proactive group of parents and staff who organise social and fundraising events for the Britannica community, amongst other mutually beneficial activities. It is also a connection point between the school and the parents’ body.

We are very hopeful that this association will develop strongly again over the next year. Look out for further information over the next few weeks.

Parking

There is only limited parking available at Britannica International School and so at the morning and afternoon drop-off and collection times it does get extremely busy. Parking is provided in the car park at the back of the school and limited spaces are available in front of the main entrance and along the road at the side of the school. Britannica has a member of staff to direct traffic and oversee the safety of the children between 08:00 and 08:30 in the morning. Please respect and follow their instructions.The safety of our students is of vital importance to us, therefore, please be very careful when driving near the school and when parking in the car park, especially when reversing, as small children are not clearly visible if they are standing or walking behind your vehicle.

Please remain respectful and be patient towards other drivers. Keeping good relationships with our neighbours is in everyone’s best interest. We kindly ask you not to block local residents’ driveways.

Consider using the School Bus service - an optional School bus service is provided by a private transportation company. Please contact the school for further information.

Should you choose public transportation the School can be reached either by:

• Buses 21 or 21A from Széll Kálmán tér (red metro line) alighting at Nógrádi út (CBA supermarket)
• Bus 212 from Boráros tér (tram 4,6) to Nógrádi út ,CBA supermarket,
• Bus 110 and 112 from Blaha Lujza tér (red metroline)/Ferenciek tere (blue metro line) to Sólyom utca.

Students coming by public transport and climbing Kakukk út should enter by the main entrance (Secondary) and the rear entrance (Primary).

Access Cards

To safeguard all of our community, an access card is required to enter the school. Both entrances have security gates, similar to those at airports that require all members of the community to scan into the building. Security guards are on site to support this process.

New parents will receive two cards per family. In the first few days, until the cards are created, the admissions team, front office staff and teachers will support new families to enter the school site securely.

For any questions with regards to access cards or to order a new one, please contact:

accesscards@britannicaschool.hu

The school requests that parents do not send their children to school with a mobile phone. Primary students are forbidden to use a mobile phone in school. Should you choose to send your child to school with a mobile phone, please note that you do so at your own risk. The school takes no responsibility for the security, monitoring and safe usage of mobile phones. The use of mobile phones in classrooms is strictly forbidden.

The school operates a BYOD (Bring your own device) approach within the secondary phase. All secondary students should bring a suitable laptop, or equivalent device with a keyboard to their lessons. Britannica is keen to take full advantage of the value IT can bring to education and make the most of the enhancement in the skill set of the community that has taken place in recent months. If you are a Primary parent in years 4-6, please look out for further information in the coming months with regards to an exciting BYOD initiative in Primary!

The school also has a fully equipped IT suite plus sets of Chromebooks and IPADs for students to use, as appropriate within the curriculum.

The academic year for 2020-2021 at Britannica runs from Thursday August 27th 2020 until Thursday 26th August 2021. Our academic year is a 365 day period. Please note that this is particularly relevant for parents to note with regard to the contracted 90 day notice period indicated in the contract. Please inform the school as soon as possible if you are leaving, this will ensure that we have the opportunity to find a student replacement and prevent costs being incurred by the parent due to late notice.

The school follows an enhanced version of the UK National Curriculum. All lessons (except MFL/Hungarian) are taught in English. We operate a 30 lessons per week timetable. Each lesson lasts 55 minutes. To allow for creativity and to help with timetabling and rooming, we operate a Week A and a Week B timetable, meaning every other week is the same, but not every week! Please see timings of lessons in the earlier section.

Key policies can be found here.

Parents will also be provided with a parent handbook that covers other areas and the rules of the school.

We have tried to cover as many general questions as we can in this document but understand that you may have individual specific questions about your child’s entrance to Britannica, We are always here to help!

contact@britannicaschool.hu

admissions@britannicaschool.hu

finance@britannicaschool.hu

I look forward to seeing you soon!

Kind regards,

Neil McGarry

Principal