Dear parents and carers,
I hope you are all well and your children and families are managing the pressures of life in lockdown. Please remember we are able to offer you support if you are having problems or even just need someone to talk to. Please call the school office, we are happy to call you back. These are very difficult days, the school is working hard to get in touch with everyone so we can offer help and keep our excellent provision for home learning up to date and meeting your children's needs.
Here is a summary of what has been going on in the past week:
Attendance at our Daycare provision:
Attendance has stabilised with attendance averaging around 13 per day.
The rhythm for teaching support is – Joe Wicks to start your day off, online home learning support, lunch and then outdoor activities/free choice learning. Seems to be working quite well. Teaching focus is to check the work children are doing, offer positive feedback in relation to the stated success criteria, next steps to improve and identify and challenge any errors and misconceptions.
Pupil reports:
The office team are now sending out the children's mid-year reports. We aim to get all of these distributed before half term. Our thanks to the teachers who spent a lot of time getting them right. These will be coming to you via SchoolPing, check your inbox.
Arts Projects:
1. We have started to get responses from the children to our “Hands around the school” project (see earlier Blog post).
2. Mr Lea is developing a community quilt idea based on rainbow themes. More news to follow.
3. He is also supporting the creation of a Lockdown mural based on work by children in the Daycare Unit. We will be publishing imagery and plans soon.
Lockdown Exit Strategy:
We are expecting an announcement form the Prime Minister on Sunday evening, hopefully with details we can work on to prepare for a partial return after the half term holiday. Once the detail is confirmed we will work hard in the coming week to put details to our response. This will be organised into three areas:
I hope you are all well and your children and families are managing the pressures of life in lockdown. Please remember we are able to offer you support if you are having problems or even just need someone to talk to. Please call the school office, we are happy to call you back. These are very difficult days, the school is working hard to get in touch with everyone so we can offer help and keep our excellent provision for home learning up to date and meeting your children's needs.
Here is a summary of what has been going on in the past week:
Our very empty and sad playground Almost empty bike sheds
Attendance has stabilised with attendance averaging around 13 per day.
The rhythm for teaching support is – Joe Wicks to start your day off, online home learning support, lunch and then outdoor activities/free choice learning. Seems to be working quite well. Teaching focus is to check the work children are doing, offer positive feedback in relation to the stated success criteria, next steps to improve and identify and challenge any errors and misconceptions.
Pupil reports:
The office team are now sending out the children's mid-year reports. We aim to get all of these distributed before half term. Our thanks to the teachers who spent a lot of time getting them right. These will be coming to you via SchoolPing, check your inbox.
Arts Projects:
1. We have started to get responses from the children to our “Hands around the school” project (see earlier Blog post).
2. Mr Lea is developing a community quilt idea based on rainbow themes. More news to follow.
3. He is also supporting the creation of a Lockdown mural based on work by children in the Daycare Unit. We will be publishing imagery and plans soon.
Lockdown Exit Strategy:
We are expecting an announcement form the Prime Minister on Sunday evening, hopefully with details we can work on to prepare for a partial return after the half term holiday. Once the detail is confirmed we will work hard in the coming week to put details to our response. This will be organised into three areas:
- what our teaching will focus on for the classes returning
- the safe organisation of the school, including use of protective equipment
- staffing management
From what we have heard so far, it is likely to be one or two year groups, in classes where we have socially distanced the children, so probably around 9 in a classroom. Watch the news on Sunday for confirmation. Once our school planning has been confirmed I will share details with you, especially the steps we will take to protect the health of the children and staff. Hopefully this will be by the end of next week.
Please note our Daycare Provision will continue to be offered to children of keyworkers until the lockdown is fully lifted.
Home Learning and Online teaching:
I have been very impressed with the quality of the children's work at home. Thanks you to all of you who have given great support for their learning during lockdown. I will emphasise that home learning is really important and you are recommended to continue to support this with your children each day. If you need any support please contact your child's class support via the school office.
Teachers have noted that a lot of the children are recording their work in the exercise books we gave out before lockdown. If this is full up, and you need another one, we have many you can choose from in the school office. Please pay us a visit in school hours, or if you need one delivered to you please fell free to ask.
We have started to train all of our teaching team on how to use the Zoom softeware, in preparation for online learning offers. We hope to complete the training and finalise our safety protocols, in preparation for being able to offer this to year groups not back in school from June onwards. I will publish details nearer half term.
Return to school in other countries
We have seen some images of what classes look like in other countries who have already welcomed some children back to school. I have attached an image from Taiwan and one from Shanghai - not promising we will do this, but you never know what the Prime Minister may recommend.
PS - not sure if these are real or not!
School Repairs:
Whilst we are in lockdown, the Premises Team have been busy – they have repainted and repaired the Infant hall.
Mr l'Aimable finishing the painting.
It now looks great, a well presented space for our learning. They are now aiming to complete redecoration of the Junior hall before half term.
We are expecting the planned playground markings to be installed in the week before half term. These include a new netball court, overpainting of the 100 square, hopscotch markings and Fitness trail between the exercise points. This will put the finishing touches to our school redevelopment, to complement the building of our new block. Hopefully we will have some children here to enjoy it.
Message from Redbridge:
“Stopping the spread of the coronavirus is everyone’s responsibility. Social distancing, washing hands and limiting time outside are all things we can do to protect ourselves and others. We also need to make sure our friends and family take this guidance seriously. The virus can live for 72 hours on metal and plastic surfaces. Taking exercise once a day is important. Walking, jogging or cycling, while ensuring you are 2-metres away from others, is good, but sitting in parks and meeting friends is not safe.
Coronavirus has affected hundreds of people in Redbridge. Sadly no one is safe from the virus. Even young, healthy people have died as a result of it. Please follow the guidelines, urge families and friends to do the same, and stay safe.”
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