Good afternoon every one,
The timing of my newsletter may well echo that 'time' is indeed a precious commodity; and, when one does not have much of it, the hurdles can elevate quite considerably. Yes, you guessed it...I am talking about our return to school.
As I am sure you are aware, and have read, listened to or even watched, the government made some very 'late-in-the-day' decisions, which has, obviously, impacted on us all. Whilst I do not wish to comment too much on the dramas, what I will say is that this left us very little time to organise a provision for both in and out-of-school learning. I am, however, very glad and comforted to know that, having invested in improved IT infrastructure and the Google Apps for Education learning platform, we were ready, nearly instantaneously, to begin remote learning again. Admittedly, due to the time constraints, this hasn't been the full curriculum offer we would have wished for. However, having survived the first week by ensuring an available provision for all (by sharing learning via Google Classroom, delivering Chromebooks, free school meals, and catering for our KWV group...the list could go on), we are now chomping at the bit and raring to offer a quality of provision that will (hopefully) make you feel proud and appreciative of being a Bardwell parent/carer/child/governor/member of the community.
Now, there are some important updates that our lovely government have recently announced. The key ones are as follows:
- KS1 remote learners must receive and get their teeth into 3 hours of learning;
- KS2 remote learners must receive 4 hours of learning;
- Child/ren engagement must be checked daily - each class teacher will be sharing a 'Learning Evaluation' each day so please support your child/the school by completing this.
I think the most important announcements are the ones where the expectations have changed considerably. For example, 3-4 hours of high-quality learning. This, I do feel, is such an important one and no one wants to see our children's learning negatively affected, AGAIN! They have had too much time away from quality learning! I am, therefore, pleading with you that you work with us, as best you can, to support your child/ren. We are fully aware of the difficulty many families now face, trying to juggle working from home alongside helping children to access remote teaching. That is why we have put in place a provision, which we feel, hopefully, addresses many of the aforementioned challenges.
From Monday, we aim to support you and your child/ren by:
- Using Google Classroom to share a 'Blended Learning' approach e.g. high-quality resources, videos, Oak Academy lessons, the G suite package of Google docs, forms/quizzes, sheets, drawings, etc, and 'live' teaching;
- Using Google Classroom to share communications, where necessary - please use this to communicate with your child's teacher as opposed to personal emails or emailing via the office;
- Offering a welfare phone call for every child remote learning to see how they are getting on;
- Offering a weekly welfare check for any families in need of extra support - please do communicate with us if you require any support or a potential place at the school; - we can't promise but we will certainly do all that we can;
- Providing a daily 'Learning Evaluation/welfare' Google Form check - please encourage/support your child to complete this;
- Providing daily phonics/reading, writing and maths focused plans;
- Offering 1:1 and small group 'Live' teaching sessions for SEN and children who require extra or specific support - watch this space;
- Launching TTRockstars and Numbots to support your child/ren's mathematical fluency - please encourage/support your child with this. TTRockstars/Numbots is such fun. You can even challenge the teachers! Who wants to take Mr Francksen on?!!!;
We have, of course, revised our risk assessment recently so please do view this (below) and offer any suggestions/concerns that you may have.
I think that's certainly enough for now; I will try to keep the majority of communications to this weekly newsletter as I appreciate the phone has been dinging a lot more than usual. However, for now, please do see a few further announcements and important notices.
May I wish you and your families a safe weekend.
And, Hang on to your Hope!
Mr Francksen
Executive Headteacher
