Keep up to date with all the latest news happening in school at the moment.
Wrap around care offering childcare before and after school will re-open on Monday 8th March. Bookings can be made online at www.premier-education.com.
Simply scroll down to the bottom to find the Parents section, click on the before or after school entry; search for our school by typing in the box. The 'courses' (provision) will be shown for you to book.
We are receiving feedback from some families that, as the length of time for home learning continues, they are finding the demands set by the Department for Education of 4-hours of daily home learning simply overwhelming.
In line with this advice, I would like to clarify a few things. As a school, we do need to set this amount of work. Indeed, a recent audit has found our provision to fully meet this criteria and has many additional avenues such as signposting Oak National Academy and BBC Bitesize daily lessons to provide a blended learning approach. This combined with our extra class pages give much, much more. For some pupils and families, this is very useful.
However, I would like to reassure pupils and parents that this work can be selected from to meet your own circumstances. If it feels too much, then scale down. An example might be to focus just on guided reading and maths. Another day, look at the creative curriculum - history or science. Do what you can as part of your daily week-day routine.
Please remember, we would like to encourage all pupils to be working in some aspect every day to keep a focus, use their skills and to ensure they keep motivated. We love to see your work so send it to us (photo/ portfolio upload) so that we can give you feedback and praise. Keep going - every little bit of work counts and is important.
Hopefully, as we approach half term, there may be some light as we creep towards getting back to a sense of normality by having pupils back at school - something we are all looking forward to.
Take care, be kind to each other and keep safe and healthy.
Just to inform you that there will be a slight alteration to the menu on Thursday 11th February.
The meal to be served will be pizza, chips and vegetables.
As you will be aware, the Prime Minister announced that the earliest date for schools to re-open will be Monday 8th March. We do not know what this re-opening will look like and it may be in a phased or staggered approach.
Our aim will be to get as many children back in as safe a way as possible whilst remaining under these guidelines.
This means that home learning will need to continue for the next 4 weeks. As ever, we have plans to keep the learning fresh, with new ideas listed on our website in the 'class page' section.
Your child has access to all the daily lessons, in all the subjects - just as is being taught in school. There are many additional websites for you to access too. Anyone struggling with device access /sharing can request a hard copy of work - this is available weekly to be collected from school on Wednesdays. Please contact your class teacher if this would help you.
Whilst we appreciate that this current situation is very, very difficult we would ask that all children are supported to work at home, doing some element of the work daily. This is really important to make sure that they keep a routine and structure and are reinforcing learning skills. This will be vital for when schools re-open.
To help you in persuading pupils to complete work, teachers will be ringing pupils at home - please check your dojo to find the times for your class. This is to talk to every child, feedback about work sent in, supporting them with any work in progress and to perform a welfare check. Therefore it is very important that the children are available to take this call.
We are working very hard to make sure we can support as many people as possible.
Take care, keep safe, stay healthy.
On Wednesday we will be uploading some work for the afternoon that focuses on mental health - so important for us all at this difficult time. This will also support Child Mental Health Week.
There will be plenty of slides and activities that can be worked through - either independently or as a family, helping children to understand that emotions felt/experienced need to be recognised and to provide some strategies to help us to feel better about ourselves, keeping in control our thoughts and leading to a more positive outlook.
This weekend is the RSPB Big Garden Birdwatch - they are asking you to count and record how many birds you see in a one-hour period that are in the garden or park (not flying over). You need to record the different species and how many birds you see in total at one time. In my garden I often have 3 pigeons that visit together and 2 blue tits. But my favourite is 1 very cute robin.
Go to the class pages to see the RSPB powerpoint and bird identification poster. You may need to be quiet and still....but you'll be amazed at what you can see. Good luck!
For further information go to www.rspb.org.uk
With the need for most pupils to be at home, there is an increased amount of time being spent online and with this comes the additional need for close supervision. With parents being asked to do more at home, a quick sit-down with your child might be the best way to achieve this. Take some time to talk through how their time online is going - has there been anything good to report and what have they enjoyed doing? Which websites/ chatrooms have they been using? Who are they talking to and how do they know them?
Has anyone been unkind to them - how and why do they think this has happened? Is it more than a spat/fallout with a class mate? Who can they talk to if they see or hear something upsetting?
A short chat can often provide that reassurance and reinforce safe online access at home.
Also, this can allow you to talk through how long is healthy for your child to be online - there is lots of evidence to state that children need to come off a device long before bedtime to ensure a good sleep is achieved. How else are they balancing their time? - doing some school work, helping in the home, exercise and reading are all good alternatives!
Children and their families can always report concerns via CEOP - this is the Child Exploitation and Online Protection Command, or CEOP Command (www.ceop.police.uk).
It is a command of the UK's National Crime Agency (NCA) and is tasked to work both nationally and internationally to bring online offenders, including those involved in the production, distribution and viewing of abusive materials.
Keep safe - always report concerns to an adult, do not keep online secrets.
Despite the snow, it is our intention to be open tomorrow for pupils who are eligible. We will, however, need to assess the conditions first thing tomorrow.
Please be careful when travelling to school - whether on foot or in the car. Do not drive up the campus driveway - we need to keep pupils and their families safe.
If your child is due to attend but is not able to, please dojo your teacher so we know they are safe.