Keep up to date with all the latest news happening in school at the moment.
On Friday the Department for Education released an update about the children of key/critical workers attending school. They added a line saying the following “but parents and carers should keep their children at home if they can”.
The guidance to parents and carers in turn now says the following:-
“Children and young people are eligible to attend school or college if:
‘At least one parent or carer is a critical worker, and they can’t keep their child at home. Critical workers are those whose work is critical to the coronavirus (COVID- 19) and EU transition response’ “
Please consider this when requesting a place in school for your child. We need to limit the number of households mixing together and only offer places in school for children who meet the criteria above or children who are vulnerable. If it is possible for you to keep your child at home this would be the safest option. The new strain of the coronavirus is more easily transmissible so it is important that we keep everyone as distant as possible.
Staff upload learning every day to Google Classroom which needs to be submitted for assessing by the class teacher and feedback will be sent home. This is the same work that pupils are accessing in school.
Thank you for your cooperation in keeping our whole school community safe.
Thank you to all our parents/carers who have collected the Chromebooks or learning packs and are doing an amazing job encouraging their child to access learning at home. We are very grateful that you are working with us to help your child despite the difficult circumstances. We can't wait to see you all again soon once schools are allowed to fully reopen.
Schools have to limit the number of pupils attending so that we can reduce the number of households mixing. Please check the criteria for a school place before requesting one as we have to reserve them for those who absolutely cannot stay at home due to parents being key workers or as part of the vulnerable children criteria. Staying at home and accessing our remote learning will help to keep you safe and will reduce your chances of catching the Coronavirus.
Take care
Miss Bilton
If your child is in KS2 and you haven't yet collected their Chromebook please call our office to collect them as soon as possible. Learning has already started via Google Classroom and all of the information that your child needs is with the Chromebook. Remote learning will be added every day to be submitted back to the class teacher, but we can also accept digital photographs of the completed work emailed to us too. Some live teaching will also take place and the times of these will be sent to you via Google Classroom so you know when these are happening.
A parent or carer needs to collect them so you can read and sign the home/school loan agreement before taking the Chromebook home.
Parents and carers of pupils in KS1 can collect their packs from our KS1 support room between 1pm and 2pm this afternoon. The packs include resources your child will need, plus information about how to log in to Google Classroom.
For all parents and pupils, Mr Piper has kindly uploaded some video tutorials to our website and on our Facebook page to help you. As always, we are trying our best to provide as much as possible but feel free to get in touch if there is anything else that we can help you with.
Staff in Y1 and Y2 have put together packs including information about how to access Google Classroom from home and some work for remote learning. If your child has not been offered a place in school, you can collect these from our KS1 support room tomorrow (Wednesday) between 1:00pm and 2:00pm. If you cannot collect these tomorrow please contact us to let us know when you can collect them instead.
Please maintain social distancing on our school site.
Thank you.
From tomorrow, children eligible for benefits-based free school meals will receive a weekly food hamper which will be delivered to school from Catering Services. We will send you a message when these are available for you to collect from school. Hampers will contain a variety of food including fresh fruit and vegetables.
Children in school will receive a packed lunch from tomorrow. These will be delivered to schools on a daily basis. If your child wishes to bring a packed lunch from home it will need to be sent in disposable packaging.
Thank you
Those who are offered a place in school will continue to use the same doors and staggered start and finish times for their usual class.
As a reminder, these are:
Nursery = 8:45am drop-off and 11:45am collection from the side walkway and EY quad area. 3:15pm finish for Nursery pupils accessing 30-hours provision. Please leave via the car park so nobody passes on the narrow path.
Reception = 8:55am drop-off and 3:15pm collection from the side walkway and EY quad area. Please leave via the car park so nobody passes on the narrow path.
Y1 = 9:05am drop-off and 3:25pm collection from the green gate at the side walkway in front of school. Please leave via the car park so nobody passes on the narrow path.
Y2 = 9:15am drop-off and 3:35pm collection from the KS1 support room. Please leave via the car park so nobody passes on the narrow path.
Y3 = 8:45am drop-off and 3:15pm collection from the KS2 yard directly into the Y3 classroom. Please leave via the exit gate onto North Terrace.
Y4 = 8:55am drop-off and 3:25pm collection from the KS2 yard. Please leave via the exit gate onto North Terrace.
Y5 = 9:05am drop-off and 3:35pm collection from the KS2 yard. Please leave via the exit gate onto North Terrace.
Y6 = 9:15am drop-off and 3:45pm collection from the KS2 yard directly into the Y6 classroom. Please leave via the exit gate onto North Terrace.
If we have not contacted you already this morning to offer a place in school for your child and you have key worker status, please contact us today to let us know if you would like a place in school for your child.
We will require information about your employment so that we can check that you are eligible for a place for your child in school.
We need to limit how many pupils are attending school to reduce mixing together and to help to reduce the spread of the virus. Thank you for your cooperation.
As you know we have Chromebooks for all pupils in KS2. These may be collected from school today at the following times and from the following locations:
Y3 from the Y3 classroom door between 1:00pm and 2:00pm
Y4 from the KS1 support room door between 1:00pm and 2:00pm
Y5 from Y3 classroom door between 2:00pm and 3:00pm
Y6 from KS1 support room door between 2:00pm and 3:00pm
Please can you ensure that you maintain social distancing when coming to collect the Chromebooks. A parent/carer must come to collect them because you will need to sign a home/school loan agreement before these can be taken from school.
If you are unable to collect at your allotted time today please contact us to let us know when you are able to collect them. They will then be available for collection from tomorrow onwards to those not possible today.
Inside the Chromebook bags there will be instructions for how to log on and use Google Classroom.
Mr Piper has also kindly created video tutorials which will be available on our website from later today.
Following the announcement made by the Prime Minister at 8pm tonight that all schools must use remote learning only we are devastated that we cannot open to pupils tomorrow as planned. Every member of our staff was dedicated to welcoming all the pupils back tomorrow and had lots of things planned which unfortunately now cannot happen.
Following discussions with Governors we now have permission for emergency school closure for tomorrow so that all the necessary arrangements can be made. This means that no pupils will be able to be in school tomorrow (Tuesday), because the late notice of the PM's announcement has left us with very little time to coordinate everything that needs to be done. We will update you all during tomorrow morning via messages and on this page on the website with our plans for the next few weeks.
I am very glad that we took the bold step and bought Chromebooks for all pupils in KS2 and took some time before Christmas to teach pupils how to use them. Information will come tomorrow on how you can collect these from school so that your child can use them at home for the learning that our staff will update daily. There will be a loan agreement that must be read and signed before you take the Chromebooks home so please ensure that a parent/carer accompanies whoever collects the Chromebook. Timings for this will be sent to you tomorrow.
Pupils in Early Years will have some work sent via Tapestry and all year groups, including KS1 can access work from the class pages on our website. We will be in touch tomorrow to find out who does not have access to the internet at home so that paper copies can be sent out instead. Many of our pupils will be able to access their learning through Google Classroom and we will have information to send home about this.
We will also be in touch tomorrow to establish who has key worker status and therefore which children can come into school. You will need to provide us with proof from your employer of your key worker status and the information will be sent to you tomorrow about this. All vulnerable children will receive a telephone call over the day tomorrow and will be offered a place in school if they wish to take it. We will let you know by 3pm tomorrow if we can definitely have these pupils in school from Wednesday, which is our goal.
I will be in touch with Catering Services tomorrow to find out how Free School Meals will be distributed from Wednesday too. This will also come out as a message during the day once I receive the answer.
We totally understand that this lockdown has been made to keep everyone as safe as possible and that we need to reduce the number of people mixing. We will be keeping updated with all guidance as it comes from the Department for Education and will share any information with you if things change. I only wish that we had been given more notice so that we could have supported you more in preparing for this but we will continue to provide everything that we can.
Staff will be in school every day so feel free to get in touch via telephone if you have any queries. I hope that our whole school community stays safe during this awful time and we're here to help in any way we can.
Take care and stay safe
Miss Bilton