Keep up to date with all the latest news happening in school at the moment.
Dear Parent / Carer,
I hope that you have had a lovely week.
Now that Nursery is open to all children, you will see a reduction in the amount of work the Nursery staff are uploading to Google Classroom. This is due to the fact they are now teaching full-time and so do not have as much time they can dedicate to Google Classroom. Each week, there will still be a new activity uploaded to the classroom for you to complete with your child.
If you decide that you do wish to send your child back to Nursery, please contact school so that we can arrange for this to happen.
Kind regards,
Mrs J Wells
Acting Head
Dear Parents / Carers,
I hope you are all having a lovely week. I would like to thank everyone for their patience whilst we get Google Classroom up and running. I know there have been a few issues with passwords, however I think these are sorted now. If you do struggle to log onto your child's Google Classroom, please email school (admin2616@welearn365.com) immediately so we can overcome these issues for you.
This morning I checked each classroom to see how many children are engaging in online learning and there are still quite a few who have not accepted their invite to Google Classroom. If you have not yet followed the instructions you received via email on Friday, please do this as soon as possible so that your child can access the high-quality teaching they would usually receive in school. If your child is attending key worker care, please ensure that you still accept the invite to Google Classroom and check your child's login works as this is how children will be educated in the future if a bubble needs to isolate.
We are pleased to say we are able to provide key worker places for many of our parents who are working in critical roles at this time, however, to keep children and staff safe, we need to continuously try to minimise the number of people in school. At the end of last week, the government revised its policy for key workers to say that those parents who are key workers should keep their children at home if they can. If you are a key worker and are working from home or are on shifts and so are at home for some of the day, please do not send your child into school when they could be at home instead. You can send them into school for half days if this coincides with your working hours.
If you are dropping off and collecting your child from school, please ensure you arrive at the correct time. This week, some parents have arrived up to 15 minutes before the children are due in school and, as a result of this, they were stood outside the classrooms waiting for the doors to open and children from different bubbles began playing with each other.
By arriving early and waiting outside, those parents are putting themselves and others at risk. As well as this, it is a risk to the children who we work incredibly hard to keep in separate bubbles for the duration of the day. I am reminding you of this to keep you, your children and our staff safe.
Nursery and Reception should be dropped off at 8:50am and collected at 3:00pm (unless they attend 15 hours Nursery provision, when they will be collected at 11.50am). Children in Year 1 and 2 should be dropped off at 9am and collected at 3:10pm. If you have children in multiple year groups, you should drop your youngest child off first at 8:50am and then immediately drop off their siblings.
We look forward to welcoming more of our Nursery children back to school tomorrow. Just to remind those of you who have children in these areas of the school, Nursery are now based in the Bridges area of school and the Bridges bubble are based in Nursery.
For those of you who are home-schooling your children, I hope you are finding this easier with the videos and resources teachers are uploading to Google Classroom. I understand it can be stressful to support with learning whilst trying to work from home yourself so please make sure you and your child take some time each day to do something different. Activities such as going for a walk, reading a story, building a den or baking are all educational. Teachers would love to see photographs of any other activities you have been doing at home with your children .
Thank you for your ongoing support.
Mrs Wells
Acting Head
Dear Parent / Carer,
From Monday 11th January 2021, our online learning will move to Google Classroom. All classes will have a specific area on here where all of their work is set. Each day, teachers will record videos to introduce the new learning, share links and resources to support children and give explanations of what children are expected to do.
Google Classroom will allow children to have greater interaction with their teachers as well as receiving the excellent teaching they would get in school. As this point, teachers will not be teaching live lessons as there are many safety concerns to consider surrounding this, as well as the fact that it relies on all children having access to a device at the same time. I feel that this puts too much pressure on parents.
If children are struggling with a piece of work, children will be able to send their teacher a comment; as well as this, if a child has errors in their work, or it is not of the standard teachers are used to seeing in the classroom, they can send it back to the child and ask them to resubmit it once it has been edited according to the feedback. Teachers will stop responding to children’s work at 2:30pm each day in order to address other duties that are required of them at this time.
As I mentioned in the newsletter, our online learning platform is work in progress and what we offer on it will grow with time. Initially, teachers will upload teaching and resources for the lessons children would usually attend that day, but as time goes on, I plan to invite children to other classrooms to address some of the other areas of the curriculum they are missing out on.
On one of the other attached sheets, you will find details for how to logon to Google Classroom and your child’s username and password will arrive by separate email, entitled: Username & Password (Welearn & Google Classroom).
I hope you find it easy to login to Google Classroom and to navigate your way around the platform. As always, if you do struggle with anything, please contact us.
Kind regards,
Mrs J Wells
Acting Head
Dear Parent /Carer,
I am writing to update you on a few things as so much has changed in school recently and I thank you for your patience during this time.
We have now finalised where you need to drop off and collect your children. Those children who are in the Nursery or Bridges bubble need to be dropped off at the Bridges entrance, those in the Reception bubble will now be dropped off at the Reception classrooms and year 1 and 2 bubbles need to be dropped off at the Year 1 and 2 classroom doors (the teacher or teaching assistant will be standing at the door to meet you). I know this has changed already; however, we have had to adapt our plans according to the number of key worker children we have coming to school.
In order to ensure the school site is as safe as possible, we will be introducing phased drop off and collection times from tomorrow. Those children who are in Nursery and Reception will be dropped off at 8:50am and collected at 3pm and those children in Years 1 or 2 will be dropped off at 9am and collected at 3:10pm. If you have children in both phases of the school, you should arrive at the earliest time to drop the youngest child off and then drop the other child to Key Stage 1 a few minutes earlier than their usual start time. Please make sure you arrive just a couple of minutes before your child starts school or the time you need to collect them. If everyone sticks to the times and guidelines set; then we will not see any parents waiting around outside of classrooms and so minimise the risk you pose to each other.
As the weather has turned and the paths are becoming icy, we are also changing the one-way system so that you do not need to walk up the incline through the carpark gate. From tomorrow, please enter and exit the school premises via the pedestrian gate. You will continue to maintain social distancing guidelines as long as you adhere to the times set .
As a school, we are currently revising how we approach the online learning so that children receive more input and a greater variety of activities. This means that although teachers will set work for children to complete this Friday afternoon, they will not be responding to their emails.
Thank you for your ongoing support.
Kind regards,
Mrs J Wells
Acting Head
Dear Parent / Carer,
Now that we have had a bit more time to organise everything since closing the school, I have a bit more information for you.
As you probably saw last night, nearly all schools in England have now closed to due to the country being put into a national lockdown and are only able to open to children whose parents are key workers or that fall into a vulnerable group. This means that most children will be educated from home. We have been working hard to identify which parents we can offer school places to and parents have been contacted accordingly. Currently, we are unable to offer as many places as we would like to due to staffing issues linked to Covid, however we are going to review this regularly and will offer more place when staff are well enough to return to work. In order to address the limited number of places, we have had to initially offer key worker places to single parent key workers or those families where both adults are key workers. Although this is not how we wish to run things, the safety and wellbeing of children, parents and staff has to be my top priority.
I understand that some parents are concerned that those children who are attending school, will be receiving some direct teaching and are at an advantage to those learning remotely at home. Please rest assured that this is not the case. When planning out how to address virtual learning and key worker/vulnerable care, we wanted to ensure it was fair for all children so the children in school will be completing the same activities as those who are at home. The only difference is that they will be supported by a member of staff where necessary, rather than an adult at home. We are also in the process of making some changes to some of the virtual learning. Please bear with us whilst we address this; I will be in touch when I have further information.
For those parents who will be dropping off and collecting their children from tomorrow onwards, there have been some slight changes made due to the numbers of children we have in school. If your child is in Years 1 or 2, please drop and collect them from the Key Stage One entrance door and those who are in Nursery or Reception will still be dropped off and collected at Bridges. All of the other arrangements set out in my previous email will still stay the same.
If you have any questions or concerns, please contact me and I will get back to you as soon as I can.
Kind regards,
Mrs J Wells
Dear Parents / Carers,
I am very sorry but I am writing to inform you that school will be unable to open as usual tomorrow due to Covid related staff shortages. As I mentioned in my last email, the safety and wellbeing of children is our top priority. In order for school to open, I need to ensure there are enough staff in each class as well as enough safeguarding leads, first aiders and cleaners. Despite all of my efforts throughout the day and after discussions with the Chair of Governors and Local Authority, I have been unable to address this and so have no other option but to close to some pupils.
Although school will not be open for all children, we will still be open for those children whose parents are key workers and those who are considered vulnerable. You were sent an email earlier this afternoon to notify us if all adults within your household are key workers; if you do meet this criteria then please send your child/children to school as usual. Parents of vulnerable children will be contacted this afternoon by a member of staff.
This afternoon, we will be sending an email to the parents of vulnerable children and to those who have responded as a key worker to give them further information about how the school day and what they need to bring with them. Bridges will be open from 8am in the morning and until 5:30pm in the evening for those children who are attending because their parents are key workers or are classed as vulnerable .
Those children who do not fall into the 'key worker' or 'vulnerable' groups will be taught remotely. Teachers will upload work to the school website everyday so children can continue their learning at home. I understand how difficult it is to support children with this, especially if you are working from home yourself but please help them wherever you can. Please email completed work to their class teacher so that they can see how the children are progressing and respond accordingly.
This is not an email any head wants to send to parents and I do apologise for this email arriving later in the day. This is due to the fact that I have been trying to overcome the staffing issues in the hope that we could open as normal.
I know how incredibly difficult this situation will be for some families and I want to give you as much information as possible so that you can make the necessary arrangements. School will be closed for the rest of this week and I will be reviewing the situation and making contact with you on Thursday so you know in advance if we are going to be able to open safely next week.
For those of you who will be sending your children into school tomorrow, I would like to reassure you that we have further enhanced our measures to address the risk Covid poses to children and staff. The school had a deep clean over the school holidays and has had another today after staff have been in. As well as this, there are further measures in place around cleaning throughout the day, the wearing of masks, handwashing and ventilation which have also been further developed. If your child wishes to wear a mask in the classroom, they are welcome to.
Thank you for your ongoing support at this incredibly difficult time.
Kind regards,
Mrs J Wells
Dear Parent / Carer,
I hope you had a lovely Christmas break with your family and have had a good start to 2021. I would like to introduce myself. My name is Jessica Wells and I am currently acting head at Brownsover Community Infant School whilst Mrs Basnett and Mrs Westerby are unwell. I know the current situation is very difficult for children, parents and staff and I would like to reassure you that the health, safety and wellbeing of everyone is my top priority.
As I am sure you are aware from what is shared by the media, the rate at which coronavirus cases are increasing and the new variant of the virus could again have a significant impact on how children are educated in the coming weeks. As a school, we want to ensure we are well prepared for what may happen and so need to have an up-to-date list of which of our parents are key workers. If you and the other parent/carer/s in your household are key workers, please respond to this email (admin2616@welearn365..com) by 4pm today. In your response, please inform us of the name of your child / children, their class and what your key worker role is.
If you are not a key worker, you do not need to respond to this email. You will receive further guidance from school later today so please check your emails regularly.
If you need to contact me at any point, my email address is goddard.j1@welearn365.com.
Kind regards,
Mrs J Wells
Dear Parents/Carers
Happy new year, and I hope that you all had a lovely Christmas break. As I write this there is still uncertainty regarding the return to school. I fully appreciate the inconvenience this causes and hope to be able to clarify details with you as soon as possible.
I hope that everyone who tested positive over the last few weeks is on the mend if not already recovered. As Mrs Westerby informed you, we were hit hard by the virus before the holidays, whilst most staff are fit and able to return to school tomorrow, we still have several who are not well enough to return. Unfortunately, this includes both myself and Mrs Westerby. In order ensure we have a headteacher at school, we have been very fortunate to secure an acting head to cover our absence. Jessica Wells is a very experienced leader from a local school and will be stepping in until Mrs Westerby or myself are able to return.
Mrs Wells will be writing to you very soon to introduce herself more fully and to share with you the most updated health and safety measures that we need to put in place to protect our school community. This is the focus of the teacher day tomorrow.
Mrs Wells can be contacted via the usual school number 01788 547660 (during office hours from Tuesday) or by email at Goddard.J1@welearn365.com from tomorrow.
I know that our fantastic staff will support Mrs Wells and I look forward to returning as soon as I am able.
Kind regards
Elisa Basnett
Headteacher