Latest News

May Update

Fri 01 May 2020

Dear Parents and Carers,

Yesterday we sent out a message on the school app with a link to a special video message from Greswold’s staff. I hope your children enjoyed watching it and that it provided some comfort to them. I realise that your children are missing their school and the people they would normally see there each day. If you haven’t had a chance to watch the video, you can access it via the link here: https://greswold-primary-school.primarysite.media/media/staff-video-message.

We have received some really positive feedback on the variety of home learning opportunities we are providing each week, along with some useful suggestions from parents and children on how to make them even better. We do consider all suggestions made by parents via email at office@greswold.solihull.sch.uk . We thank parents for understanding that not every suggestion will be implemented. If we do not adopt an idea, such as video conferencing, it is only after careful consideration by senior leaders and with the support of the governing body.

Please do not feel that there is any pressure from us to complete the home learning activities. We are trying to provide a variety of activities so parents can choose what is most appropriate for their particular home circumstances. However, I ask that you appreciate that every family’s situation is unique and everyone is under different pressures at the moment. This also applies to our brilliant staff team who are already working incredibly hard on providing home learning while managing their own health and the care of their own families. Some are also working on the school site providing care for children who cannot be cared for at home.

I know staff have been amazed by the quality and creativity of home learning that has been shared either on Tapestry (Nursery to Year 1) or through the upload link on each year group’s page (Year 2 to Year 6). Children have enjoyed seeing their efforts on the website too so please continue to upload your photos and a selection will be published by staff each week. While we will not be providing feedback on individual work, we are so proud of everything that the children are achieving in such difficult circumstances. If I can offer you one piece of advice, it is to celebrate the effort shown by your child, rather than worry about what they can’t do yet.

I hope that you are finding the other resources on our website helpful too, especially those that offer advice and support on mental health which can be found in the School Closure section of the website https://www.greswold.solihull.sch.uk/school-closure/ If you are in need of further support for yourself or your child, please do contact me via the school email address and I will endeavour to help you to find a solution or strategy.

Since the start of school closure, we have been in regular phone contact with our vulnerable children, as defined by the government. Following feedback, I am interested in knowing if there are any other families who feel their child needs a phone call home from a relevant member of staff to support their child’s mental health or motivation. Of course, we need to see if we can accommodate this but knowing the extent of how many children may need a call will help us to prioritise. Please let me know via the office email account.

The video message sums up how all staff are feeling at the moment so here it is in full:

Hello to all Greswold pupils and your families. We hope that you are keeping well and staying safe. It seems like a long time since normal school days at Greswold. We miss seeing you learning in lessons, playing with friends, eating lunch, singing, in assembly, having fun and learning new skills.

We miss being with you in your classrooms, in the Nursery, in the library, in The Nest, in the Den, in Greyhounds, in the outdoor classroom, on the trim trails, in the playground, in forest school. Everywhere.
We need you to know that we are all ok. We are staying safe, staying at home, protecting the NHS and saving lives.

We know it is difficult. Everything is different. We don’t know when we will come back to Greswold. Please do your best for your parents, for your families and for others. Try some home learning.

Remember our values. Belonging, Respect, Independence, Curiosity, Kindness and Success. Try to show our BRICKS every day.

We look forward to seeing you soon. But for now stay safe.

Yours faithfully

Karen Scott
Headteacher

Summer Term Update

Mon 20 Apr 2020

Dear Parents and Carers,

I hope you all had a restful Easter break and welcome to Greswold’s first remote summer term!

We’ve all had to adapt to new ways of working, so I wanted to take the opportunity to say what an amazing job you’re doing supporting your child’s wellbeing and learning during this time.

It’s definitely been a strange and challenging time, so it’s ok if you and your child feel wobbly and worried at the moment. We’re here for you as we figure this all out together. For parental updates and ideas, take a look at https://www.greswold.solihull.sch.uk/school-closure. Remember, if you have any concerns about helping your child learn or you need any other support from the school, please let us know by emailing the school office on office@greswold.solihull.sch.uk

We miss the children very much, but we must follow the government’s guidance to keep everyone in our community safe. We continue to provide care for a limited number of children- children who are vulnerable or children whose parents are critical to the Covid-19 response and cannot be safely cared for at home.

But just because we’re not all in the same building, doesn’t mean we can’t have some fun together! Your children will have lots of activities they can get stuck into over the summer term – so keep a close eye on our school website, especially the year group pages. https://www.greswold.solihull.sch.uk/topic/year-groups

Let’s get cracking with our summer term!

Yours faithfully,

Karen Scott

Greswold School Closure Update

Mon 30 Mar 2020

Dear Parents and Carers,

I am writing to you all to provide you with some reassurance and updates about our school. Firstly, I would like to reassure you that our staff team is following government guidance and continues to serve Greswold while taking care of themselves and their families. Currently, staff members are well but are genuinely missing the children. I know they join me in saying hello to everyone and remind our children of our BRICKS values which remain so important even in these unprecedented times.

I thank you all for your support in keeping children at home and encouraging them to continue with home learning. To support parents while their children are at home, we will be setting 4 days of home learning activities for the weeks beginning 6th and 13th April. While we do not normally set work at Easter, we feel that continuing to provide learning might help to keep your child engaged and in the routine of learning at home. However, we do realise there may be other pressures placed on families at this time such as illness or the need for parents themselves to work at home. We therefore fully understand if parents feel that a break is needed from work or if they would prefer to take a different approach. Our aim has always been to help and support families and not hinder so please make that decision if necessary.

I would like to remind those families who are eligible for free school meals, not universal infant free school lunches, that a packed sandwich lunch can be collected from school each day after 12pm. If you are eligible and haven’t already told us that you would like to collect a lunch, please contact the school office email 25office@greswold.solihull.sch.uk . Some parents eligible for free school meals have requested a food voucher instead of a packed sandwich lunch. Unfortunately, Solihull Catering is not offering this at the moment but please be assured that I will contact you if their offer changes.

The government guidance remains that those who can stay at home should stay at home. However, we plan to continue to offer care for vulnerable children and those whose parents are key workers who are unable to provide alterative safe care between 8.30am and 4pm from Monday 6th to Thursday 9th April and from Tuesday 14th to Friday 17th April. It would be incredibly helpful, from a staffing perspective, to know how many children will be needing care for these dates in advance so please email the office 25office@greswold.solihull.sch.uk by Wednesday 1st April if you require care.

I hope everyone is staying well, keeping safe and taking time to enjoy being with their families.

Yours faithfully,

Karen Scott

Headteacher

Coronavirus - Update from Solihull Local Authority

Wed 25 Mar 2020

Dear parents and carers,

On behalf of the local authority, our schools/settings and the many vulnerable residents within
our borough, we would like to thank you for, in the vast majority of cases, keeping your children
at home. We appreciate the additional challenges that this will bring but it is essential if we are to
limit the spread of coronavirus and ensure that the NHS is not overwhelmed.

Schools, settings (including early year’s settings, childminders and providers of childcare for
school-age children), colleges and other educational establishments are closed for the
foreseeable future. The exception to this is to provide child care for children who are vulnerable,
and children whose parents are critical to the Covid-19 response and cannot be safely cared for
at home where there is no alternative.

Our message to you is clear, all families are required to keep their children at home - use of the
school can only be offered if there is no safe alternative. The flow chart below will help you to
decide if it is absolutely necessary to send your child to school or early year’s provision.

Although the chart strongly encourages care for your child at home where only one parent or carer is a key worker, we do appreciate that this is not always possible. We have asked our schools and childcare settings to be flexible in their approach in these situations, especially where the key worker works for the NHS.

If a school or setting is unable to open, the local authority will coordinate provision within your
local area. You will find more information for parents and carers on the DfE website.
Please remember, you must keep your child at home if they have any of the following symptoms:

a high temperature – this means you feel hot to touch on your chest or back (you do not need to measure your temperature).
a new, continuous cough – this means coughing a lot for more than an hour, or 3 or more coughing episodes in 24 hours (if you usually have a cough, it may be worse than usual).

Please see the NHS website for further information including the requirement for the whole
household to self-isolate for 14 days if anyone has symptoms.

It is important that you remind your child to wash their hands more often - with soap and water for
at least 20 seconds or use a hand sanitiser when they get into school, blow their nose, sneeze or
cough, eat or handle food. Difficult though we know it is, children should also be observing the 2
meter distancing from each other where at all possible.

Once again, we are grateful to you for all that you are doing to follow government advice as
closely as possible. We know that all of us will need to make sacrifices over the coming weeks
and months as we face the challenges that lie ahead.

Yours sincerely
Ruth Tennant - Director of Public Health

Louise Rees - Director of Children Services and Skills

School Closure Home Learning

Mon 23 Mar 2020

Greswold staff have been busily preparing home learning activities for pupils initially for the next two weeks. You can access these via our website through Children/Year Groups. All year groups' planning should be available by 9:00am on Tuesday 24th March. Thank you.

School Closure update

Fri 20 Mar 2020

Dear Parent / Guardian,

In response to recent government directives, I wish to make the following clear in relation to Greswold:

From Monday 23rd March, Greswold, including Greyhounds, will be closed to the vast majority of pupils.

From Monday 23rd March, Greswold will offer care to:

• our children who have an EHCP
or
• have an attached social worker
or
where parents are critical workers and cannot provide their own safe care for their children. Please see below for the current definition of a critical worker.

From Monday 23rd March, the care that can be provided for children of critical workers or those with EHCP/social worker will be between 8.30am and 4pm only. Parents will need to provide the children with a full packed lunch including drinks. Children will not be required to wear school uniform. It is intended to continue this care during the Easter holidays but not including Good Friday or Easter Monday.

In order for us to plan for Monday 23rd March and beyond, it is essential that parents who are identifying as critical workers inform us if they cannot provide their own safe care to their children by email 25office@greswold.solihull.sch.uk or phone 0121 705 4738 by 12pm today. If you notified us yesterday, please do so again so we have one updated list.

The current definition of a critical workers includes:

Health and Social Care - This includes but is not limited to doctors, nurses, midwives, paramedics, social workers, care workers, and other frontline health and social care staff including volunteers; the support and specialist staff required to maintain the UK’s health and social care sector; those working as part of the health and social care supply chain, including producers and distributers of medicines and medical and personal protective equipment.

Education and Childcare - This includes nursery and teaching staff, social workers and those specialist education professionals who must remain active during the COVID-19 response to deliver this approach.

Key public services - This includes those essential to the running of the justice system, religious staff, charities and workers delivering key frontline services, those responsible for the management of the deceased, and journalists and broadcasters who are providing public service broadcasting.

Local and national government - This only includes those administrative occupations essential to the effective delivery of the COVID-19 response or delivering essential public services such as the payment of benefits, including in government agencies and arms length bodies.

Food and other necessary goods - This includes those involved in food production, processing, distribution, sale and delivery as well as those essential to the provision of other key goods (for example hygienic and veterinary medicines).

Public safety and national security - This includes police and support staff, Ministry of Defence civilians, contractor and armed forces personnel (those critical to the delivery of key defence and national security outputs and essential to the response to the COVID-19 pandemic), fire and rescue service employees (including support staff), National Crime Agency staff, those maintaining border security, prison and probation staff and other national security roles, including those overseas.

Transport - This includes those who will keep the air, water, road and rail passenger and freight transport modes operating during the COVID-19 response, including those working on transport systems through which supply chains pass.

Utilities, communication and financial services - This includes staff needed for essential financial services provision (including but not limited to workers in banks, building societies and financial market infrastructure), the oil, gas, electricity and water sectors (including sewerage), information technology and data infrastructure sector and primary industry supplies to continue during the COVID-19 response, as well as key staff working in the civil nuclear, chemicals, telecommunications (including but not limited to network operations, field engineering, call centre staff, IT and data infrastructure, 999 and 111 critical services), postal services and delivery, payments providers and waste disposal sectors.

We will continue to communicate with you regarding any updates or necessary changes. Please follow government guidance on social distancing and self-isolation. I know that you appreciate that keeping school open for identified pupils is reliant on our own dedicated staff being able to work. Thank you for your continued support.

Karen Scott
Headteacher

All Stars Cricket taster sessions

Thu 05 Mar 2020

This week children in Reception, Year 1, Year 2 and Year 3 are enjoying taster sessions run by All Stars Cricket. Each class will get to try out different cricketing activities including fielding and batting skills. A letter will be send home with each pupil should they like to continue to develop these skills and have fun playing cricket at an All Stars Cricket club.

There is more information about All Stars Cricket on the ECB website.

World Book Day Celebrations

Wed 04 Mar 2020

Corridors and Classrooms around Greswold were brimming with colour and character today as the school community celebrated reading, books and World Book Day. Well done to everyone and we hope you enjoyed the celebrations as much as we have.

Year 4 friendly football competition

Tue 03 Mar 2020

A team of children from Year 4 took part in a friendly football competition at Olton and West Warwickshire. The mixed team played 4 matches against other local schools. There were lots of goals and the children won some o their matches. Overall, an enjoyable evening. Well done to the team for representating Greswold so well and encouraging each other.

Fantastic Sportshall Athletics Area Final performance

Mon 02 Mar 2020

A fantastic performance by the Year 5/6 Sportshall Athletics team resulted in a 2nd place finish at the Area Final at North Solihull Sports' Centre on 28th February. Roared on by wonderful support, as always, from our travelling families, Greswold performed admirably across 12 track and field events, winning several of them. Well done children. Everyone at Greswold is very proud of your achievement.

Final standings:

1st (298 points) Knowle

2nd (272 points) Greswold

3rd (252 points) Dorridge

4th (222 points) St Alphege

5th (206 points) Shirley Heath

6th (184 points) Berkswell

7th (182 points) Sharman's Cross

8th (152 points) Langley