Our final message of the week comes from Miss Beatson, St James’ CE Primary’s Head of School.
We’re now at the end of the second week back in school. We’ve managed to open three ‘bubbles’ (groups which are separated from the others) and we’ll start a fourth bubble next week. At this point, following current government guidelines, we’ll be close to full capacity and unable to have any more children in school for the time being.
Staff are doing a fantastic job under challenging circumstances. They’ve worked incredibly hard:
- making school as safe as possible
- supporting our children’s wellbeing
- teaching lessons within the new constraints of the classroom
- continuing to provide good quality home learning online for our children who are still at home
School at the moment does feel quiet and different. We’re all missing each and every one of you who can’t join us right now.
Nevertheless, the children in school have been very good at following and respecting the new rules and they’ve taken so well to the ‘new normal’.
To further support learning at home, we’ve bought all children in Reception to Year 5 a bundle of textbooks and more information about how to collect these will be communicated next week. We hope this will further support the online learning or ‘re-motivate’ some of the children who may have been struggling to engage in learning in recent weeks.
As Mr Roundtree mentioned in his daily message on Wednesday, we still don’t know what the school picture looks like for September and we understand it can be an anxious time for parents with so much uncertainty. We’ll be working very hard to put safe plans in place and follow the government advice and guidelines and obviously communicate the plans to you as soon as we can.
For those families who are already coming into school or who will be starting school next week, here are a few reminders about the expectations in order to keep our school community as safe as possible:
- stick to the allocated drop off and pick up times for your child
- only one parent is to drop off and pick up
- if any new medication is to be given in school, please inform the office prior to your child coming into school
- it should be someone from the household collecting your child
- water bottles must be brought into school
If your child is back at school, please make sure you read the last two pages of this document – it’s important information about what we need from you and your child to keep everyone safe at school.
If your child is returning soon, please make sure you read the whole document, so you can be prepared with every detail, from snacks to sun-cream (although not much of that is needed at the moment!).
Have a good weekend, despite the weather.