Patrons: H.R.H.

Prince El Hassan Bin Talal Principal: Alun Yorath

H.R.H. Princess Sarvath El Hassan

Monday 17th January 2022

Dear ICS Parents,

School opening and COVID protocols/information

Welcome back and a Happy New Year to all families. Whilst the ever changing landscape over the last
few weeks has certainly tested us all I am delighted to be writing to you today from a school campus
fully open. Please forgive the bullet point nature of this letter but I felt it the best way of getting across
some important points in as easy a way as possible for you to digest.

COVID protocols and on campus learning

Our role
● We continue to do all we can to remain open here in school.
● The enforcement of mask wearing, hand hygiene and social distancing wherever possible remain
our best defences against the community spread of COVID.
● Our cleaning protocols, ventilation regime and testing/tracking remain as last term.

Your role
Helping us to keep the school open is vital and we ask that you communicate clearly, quickly and with
detail when your child or any member of your household shows symptoms or tests positive for COVID.

Please use COVID@ics.edu.jo for all communication and in writing to us it really helps if you can include
as much detail as possible including:
● Names and classes or year groups of all children in your household
● Attached copies of any PCR test results
● Clear details about the reporting case: Symptoms, time of onset, close contacts etc…
We will be back in touch as soon as possible with advice or further questions to help you navigate the
situation.

Naturally the best way you can help our community keep safe and the school open is to minimise the
number of COVID cases in our community. Your proactive approach to this is much appreciated.

Online learning
● Whilst our campus is open and the majority of our students and staff are in school our efforts
are focused on in class teaching.
● For those children needing to isolate or who have tested positive but are symptom free they can
access our asynchronous online learning through Google classroom.
● Further information about this is shared with individual families at the time of isolation as this
may change depending on the number of staff and students absent.

Email: office@ics.edu.jo | Website: www.ics.edu.jo | Telephone: +962 6 4790 666 | Fax: +962 6 5725 416

Our mission is to provide a personalised, high quality education, drawing on the best of British and international practice.
We will continue to nurture and invest in an inclusive and diverse learning community of happy, confident and creative global citizens.
Changes to isolation periods
● In line with the latest MoH directives students testing positive with COVID and presenting
symptoms are required to remain at home for 10 full days and then may return to school on day
11 if symptom free for the last 72 hours.
● Students who test positive but have no symptoms may isolate for 7 days and return on day 8.
● PLEASE NOTE: We will advise families of the return date to school and confirm this with you via
the COVID@ email address.
● ALSO, note that students testing positive for COVID do not need a negative result to return to
school and are not advised to test. Once the isolation period has been met and with no
symptoms the student is no longer regarded as infectious and may return to school.
● Unfortunately, early testing negative does not allow an early return to school before the end of
the isolation period.

Reporting of case numbers in our community

● Now that term has officially begun we will endeavour to report case numbers in our community
each Sunday via letter. This letter will highlight any further changes or instructions concerning
COVID that we need to make you aware of.
● Some parents have asked if we can alert them as to the type of infection a student has - Delta or
Omicron. Many PCR tests do not report the variant and in the case of most of our students the
CT count they are testing positive with does not allow accurate determination of variant.
● Whilst we understand that parents may be concerned about the higher rate of infection with
Omicron the reality is that approximately 50% of cases in Jordan are now predicted to be
Omicron and with the global trend as a reliable predictor we expect to see most new cases of
COVID in the coming weeks to be Omicron.

Positivity rate by group upto Sunday 16th January, includes individuals who have not been on school
campus since last term.
Group % Positive and Group % Positive and Group % Positive and
active active active

Staff 7.2% Y4 0.0% Y9 2.2%

EY1-EY2 4.2% Y5 3.2% Y10 0.0%

Y1 2.6% Y6 4.8% Y11 0.0%

Y2 0.0% Y7 5.9% Y12-13 4.0%

Y3 9.8% Y8 4.1%

*The data shared above includes a number of students who have not been on the school campus yet
this term. Please remember that we are obligated to close the year group if the number of students in a
pod reaches 10%- this does not include students who have not yet started school and so a number of
students in the above data are not included in our 10% limits.

Email: office@ics.edu.jo | Website: www.ics.edu.jo | Telephone: +962 6 4790 666 | Fax: +962 6 5725 416
Next week’s data will only include students who have been on school campus either during the
Challenge week or during this week of school. We must keep these numbers below 10%!

We share the total number with you here today to highlight that case numbers in our community (and
across Amman) are significant and we ask for your support in protecting our community by reducing
your social contacts wherever possible at this time.

Our ability to remain open in the coming weeks comes through a combined effort by all of us to
minimise infection in our community as best we can.

Vaccinations
● Vaccination rates amongst our eligible secondary students (12+) are still below 70%. We ask that
all parents whose children are eligible for vaccination take this opportunity to protect our
community by vaccinating.
● Every member of staff on our site is double vaccinated and a significant proportion have now
received booster doses.
● Access to the school campus for all visitors (including parents) is dependent on proof of
vaccination inline with Defence Law 35.

Parent SLT virtual drop in session (Google Meet)

We understand that the next few months will continue to be challenging for us all. To help answer any
queries, concerns or better understand a decision or action taken by the school we will be offering a
weekly Tuesday 5pm Google Meet. This is intended for any parents who wish to join and ask any
questions. Myself and available members of the Senior Leadership Team will be online. We hope that by
offering this opportunity for conversation we can gain a better understanding of your concerns whilst
also providing answers to these concerns where possible. A digest of the meet will be included in the
Sunday weekly COVID letter to parents. The link for this weekly webinar is below:

Tuesday 5pm Weekly Parent SLT COVID Google Meet: meet.google.com/kau-totg-uda

Kind regards,

Alun Yorath
Principal

Email: office@ics.edu.jo | Website: www.ics.edu.jo | Telephone: +962 6 4790 666 | Fax: +962 6 5725 416