A message from Paul Wagstaff,
Director of Education & Skills
5 June 2020
Dear colleagues,
I am pleased to share with you accounts from some of our schools of how they are involving their pupils and parents in their wider reopening this week. Please do continue to share your accounts with our communications team and we will look to include them in future updates.
There are many very positive messages coming through and I know that there are many examples of creative thinking, effective communications and good examples of how schools are managing their phase return. We are keen to share some of this good practice and very keen to hear of the many examples of how schools are making this work.
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News from head teachers
Handcross School have begun successfully welcoming back additional pupils from this week. The school started their week with a visit from Sky News and pupils and teachers were interviewed on live national television, speaking positively about the school and very honestly about their new way of schooling. Students spoke about the impact that reduced social play is having on them and how their teachers are finding ways to facilitate relationship building amongst the children. Returning Year 6s were shown a presentation explaining the changes to the school, which was shared with parents in advance along with their risk assessment.
Headteacher Sharon Bondonno said on Tuesday: “We have taken social distancing very seriously and have taken measures to mitigate risk and the children were exceptional yesterday. I also sent our risk assessment to parents and it was great to see in the interviews that they commented on reading the risk assessment and were happy to send their children in based on the measures we have taken.”
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Rebecca Toogood, head at Southwater Junior Academy, wrote on Wednesday: “Today, we were delighted to welcome back 82 Year 6 pupils as part of the wider re-opening of Southwater Junior Academy (SJA). Children entered the school through a cascade of bubbles, to meet their teacher, see their peers, and embark on their last few weeks of primary education before transferring to secondary school. The return of our Year 6 pupils is also in addition to the 40 ‘key worker’ children (in Years 3-5) already attending SJA this week. The atmosphere around the school is very clearly focused on ‘kindness’ which is one of our core school values. Children have been encouraged to think about social distancing and hand hygiene measures as simple ‘acts of kindness’ which keep both themselves and each other safe.
It’s been fantastic to see well over a quarter of our pupils returning to SJA. We want to thank the whole school community of our parents, pupils and staff who have contributed towards making today such a relaxed and positive experience for our Year 6 pupils and ‘key worker’ children.
Sarah Palmer, Headteacher at Camelsdale, shared with us a Framework for Parents introducing Q&A for parents about the phased return to school and answering some of those questions and worries parents have, both of those who will be returning, and also for those who can’t return just yet:
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What will the children be learning?
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- The children will be mirroring the learning that is being set by the teachers for the Home Learning. The Home Learning will be implemented in school by the teaching team here. This will ensure we keep all the children on the same learning journey as much as possible and will help build progress and avoid slippage in our curriculum for the children.
- We will try to learn outside as much as possible.
- We will do Wild School but in our groups and on a rota basis.
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As our secondary schools also begin to plan ready to support transition of their new year 7 pupils, Dave Carter and his team at Sir Philip Howard have engaged students in putting together a comic for Year 6 pupils transferring in September to help reduce anxieties, create that connection, and to help prepare children for their move.Click to edit this placeholder text. |
I am aware that many of you are busy managing individual situations within your schools, so sharing the above is aimed at giving a flavour of the collective and positive efforts going on, with no additional expectations on other schools to do the same.
Thank you all for working with your staff, pupils and parents to navigate your way successfully through what for many is a first week of new arrangements.
Have a restful weekend with your families.
Kind regards
Paul
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