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Newsletter 6th November 2020

Newsletter 6th November 2020
November 6, 2020 Sandy Pike

Dear Parents and Carers

After the wettest half term holiday I can remember, it has been lovely to see the sun shining again. With hats, gloves, scarves and coats being necessary in the mornings, please make sure everything is clearly named.

Notwithstanding the colder weather, please remember that we are obliged to keep windows and doors open to ensure a good circulation of air around the classrooms. We will be keeping the heating on, but inevitably some children may find just their polo shirts and sweatshirts not enough. If your child feels the cold, please make sure a vest is worn in school and, as most of our PE lessons continue to be outdoors, named tracksuits are permitted for these sessions.

Update on school arrangements during ‘lockdown’

With the country now entering a new period of additional measures to prevent the further spread of Covid-19, we are continually looking to make sure we are following guidance and looking after the whole school community:

Breakfast and After School Clubs The guidance states that our ‘wraparound care’ should still be available to parents and carers so they can continue to work, train or seek employment. ‘All other out of school activities, not being primarily used by parents for these purposes, should close for face-to-face provision for the duration of the national restrictions’. This has unfortunately meant that we cannot at present offer any after school activities such as Tennis or other sports, or any of the other clubs we have previously offered.

Furthermore, in order to ensure our Breakfast and After School Clubs offer as safe an environment as possible, from now on please only book your children in if you need us to look after your children in order for you to work or train. If your children attend on specific days or every day each week for these reasons they can continue to come, and we will, of course, look after any others if an emergency arises.

Delivery and Collection of your children In line with new arrangements in many other open but contained spaces, I need to ask you to wear a face-covering when out of your car on school premises. In the mornings, to aid circulation in the car park, I would like to try a ‘drive-through’ approach. If you have very young children, you may want to help them out of the car, but for the others, if they are ready in the car before you arrive, you can pull up nearest the main entrance, drop off your children with a member of staff (usually me) and carry on round the roundabout. At the end of the day, please exercise social distancing practices at all times, even with a face-covering. We will try to make sure we bring the children out promptly and then need you to leave the car park as soon as you have collected your child. I will be constantly reviewing these arrangements and am still considering some sort of staggered finish to the day to ease congestion.

As with all matters to do with your children’s school, your views on this would be appreciated – please do not hesitate to talk to me at the beginning or end of each day.

Sponsored Walk

Many thanks to those of you who have already brought in your sponsorship forms and money following the half term PTFA Challenge. Please collect all your sponsorship moneys and bring them into school by next Tuesday, 10th November. I appreciate you may find it difficult now to collect money from friends and relatives who live away, but please bring what you have already collected and we will happily accept any money that comes in late. There has been some terrific support for the provision of a Defibrillator in school – well done to everyone who took part.

Remote Learning

I have mentioned previously that, in the event of your child having to isolate at home or the whole class is having to learn from home, we will be using Microsoft Teams as the platform for sharing the work. Your child will be receiving a personal user name and password when we use it in the classroom, but its real value will be for home learning. If you would like to find out more about how Teams works, there is a guide for parents at:

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/distance-learning-with-microsoft-365-guidance-for-parents-and-guardians-89d514f9-bf5e-4374-a731-a75d38ddd588

This will work best on a tablet such as an iPad, or on a laptop or desktop. While the programme will run on a phone, it is not a big enough screen for the children to be able to access the work.  As before, we have a small number of laptops available for loan if you do not have anything suitable at home, and it would be helpful for me to know if you would need to borrow one in order for your child to make best use of Teams. All requests will be treated in the strictest confidence.

With best wishes

James Stanford