Dear Families,

Another week has gone by and yet again, the world around us is changing. You will all be aware of the announcement on Sunday by the Prime Minister regarding the potential return to school for children in Reception, Year 1 and Year 6 on June 1^st.  As school leaders, we heard the news at the same time as the rest of the country. Guidance as to how this return can be achieved is only just beginning to come into schools from the DFE and the teaching unions.

As I am sure you can imagine, this announcement has led to a lot of confusion and we are still in the very early stages of planning what the re-opening of school will look like for our community. We are working hard in school to make sure that the school environment is ready – this is proving to be a mammoth task in itself. We have sent a separate letter to the families of our Reception. Year 1 and Year 6 children and a copy is on the website for your information.

This is a very complex and demanding situation to manage. My overriding responsibility as Head teacher is the safety and wellbeing of the children and staff in school. This process will be managed in a slow, planned way and we will need to start with small groups of children in order to ensure that all the procedures we have put in place are effective.

Going forward these new arrangements will mean that more staff will need to be in school. Therefore, we are looking to review our Home Learning arrangements as we move into the next phase. The teachers will have less time to plan and respond to emails on a daily basis. It is likely that learning will be set on a weekly basis and that you will be able to plan your own timetable for the week. We are determined to maintain the quality of learning and activities for the children and to keep the communication going through the class emails, phone calls and class Zoom meetings. This is all in the planning stages at the moment and I will be able to give you more details next week.

Next week is the last week of Home Learning until May half term. No learning will be set during half term week so that you can all have some relaxed time together. School will remain open for our keyworker children and I want to thank the staff for their commitment to this once again. We will resume our phone calls after half term and Zoom meetings will continue then too. Don’t forget – if you need us school is open all the time and you can ring us any time. We are here to help, support, listen, signpost to services……………….whatever you need.

My assembly this week features one of my favourite stories The Rainbow Fish, a story about friendship and kindness. These values are so important and those small acts of friendship, community and kindness make such a difference when life is feeling uncertain. Look out for my special guests this week!

Take care everyone. We can do this together and I thank you all for your support, kind words and lovely feedback.

 

Mrs Revill

Head Teacher