Dear Parents and Carers,

As we approach the final week of this half term, I’d like to give families a friendly reminder that Friday 12th February is a non-pupil day (INSET), meaning live ‘catch-up’ sessions will be scheduled on alternative days instead.  This vital training day will enable staff to start strategically planning for the return of all pupils in March, depending on clarification from the government on 22nd February.   

In respect of remote learning, this past week has seen the introduction of live sessions for Reception pupils, along with the launch of Assignments in years’ 2-6.  As always, staff are constantly reviewing their remote learning, and the provision as a whole, enabling senior leadership to plan ways to adapt, develop and improve elements of it further.  

An aspect of remote learning that isn’t always ideal, but necessary, is the regular use of a device to complete tasks, upload work, view recordings and participate in live sessions.  The need to look at a screen for prolonged periods of time is something that we have been deliberating for some time, due to the obvious implications on physical wellbeing.  Therefore, for the final week of term, school staff have decided to generate tasks which will help reduce the amount of time children spend on their devices.  Although several live sessions will continue, your children will encounter a slightly adapted approach to next week’s provision, with an emphasis being placed on more practical and creative aspects of learning.  

Recently, school have received a number of emails from families enquiring about the possibility of school publishing a week’s learning in advance and, while we acknowledge the advantages to some households in doing so, there are several reasons as to why we’ve chosen the system we currently have. 

In order to resource each individual lesson properly, staff require time to generate impactful content, resources and recordings and this can only be achieved on a day by day basis.  Also, government guidance recommends a system which ‘enables teachers to adjust the pace or difficulty of what is being taught in response to assessments, including, where necessary, revising material…’  Supplying at least two days of work a week initially, which will then be added to according to evaluations, will continue to be school’s preferred system for the time being. 

  To conclude, a handful of other updates from the last week:

•             If your child is having any sort of difficulty with the learning or task set for them, they should be accessing the daily ‘drop-in’ sessions for support.  An indication to parents of a need for this would be your child requiring instructions clarified or simply a question they have.  

•             School would like to encourage pupils to complete their daily tasks as much as possible during school hours.  There have been instances of work being uploaded into the evening and we would prefer to promote these times of the day for rest and sleep.

•             Next week, staff in years’ 2-6 will be monitoring the chat function of live sessions closely to ensure it is used appropriately.  Children are not allowed to use the chat function during live assemblies either. 

•             A reminder that the instructions on accessing Assignments in Microsoft Teams using an Ipad is located in the Video Resource Centre of the school website in Children. 

As always, thank you for taking the time to read this update.  Take care and stay safe. 

Mr Hornsey

Deputy Headteacher