Headteacher Newsletter Issue 9
FORTNIGHTLY NEWSLETTER ISSUE 9: 29.1.21
I hope you are all well.
Well done Clavering Primary School.
Clavering Primary School has been asked to be a case study for RM Microsoft Teams regarding our remote learning to date.
We will also be supporting them produce a sequel capturing more recent developments, which will also include involving staff more fully.
This will be used to support other schools.
We are very proud of all the efforts from our school community both at home and at school.
https://www.rm.com/blog/2021/january/clavering-primary-school
DFE update –
- Press Release – schools
Just to confirm the Prime Minister’s announcement last Wednesday, that schools and colleges will not be returning to full opening following the half term break and the current restrictions will remain in place for a longer period.
The DFE press release published Wednesday evening states that the current attendance restrictions will remain in place until 8 March at the earliest. Children of critical workers and vulnerable children and young people will still be able to attend schools and colleges, including special schools and alternative provision. Early years settings also remain open. All other pupils will to continue to receive high quality remote education at home.
Education attendance restrictions are to be reviewed again in mid-February and the government has committed to publishing a plan for leaving lockdown by the end of February.
- Lateral Flow Testing
From next week, staff that are onsite will begin the lateral flow testing process which will support reduce the rate of infection by detecting asymptomatic cases. It does not pick up all cases so distancing and hand washing plus our other rigorous safety measures are still just as important, but it will help.
When the school opens all staff will be part of this testing process.
Online Safety
Online Safety has never been more important for all of our children. I hope some of you were able to book onto the 2Johns Online Safety briefings shared with KS2 parents last week.
With our children having access to the internet, social media and other web based programmes more than ever, regularly checking what they are seeing and interacting with is crucial.
We are planning some home learning opportunities to support the children with online safety to coincide with Safer Internet Day on 4th February. In the meantime, you may wish to look at some of the following resources available for parents:
The NSPCC – https://www.nspcc.org.uk/keeping-children-safe/online-safety/
The NSPCC estimate that during the past nine months, the police recorded 90 cybercrimes per day against children involving child abuse images and sexual grooming offences.
The charity has continued to update its COVID-19 advice and support for parents and carers on various issues, and now has a range of information and advice about online safety. Topics covered include talking to children about online safety, the risks associated with online gaming and how to protect children, and parental controls.
Government Advice The government has updated its Coronavirus (COVID-19): support for parents and carers to keep children safe online guidance – https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/coronavirus-covid-19-keeping-children-safe-online/coronavirus-covid-19-support-for-parents-and-carers-to-keep-children-safe-online
The guidance, which provides advice and information to help parents and carers to keep children safe online during the Coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak, now includes information on Apps to help children stay safe online.
Remote learning
Thank you again for all your help in the implementation of remote learning. We recognise that you will be trying to juggle many commitments of your own and so we are grateful for all you are doing to facilitate and support your child’s engagement with his/her learning. We appreciate that some days may, for whatever reason, allow more learning to take place than others. Whatever your child is able to engage with and complete will add value, and so please do not feel anxious if not all work is completed.
Staff are working extremely hard providing the remote learning provision or supporting children in school. It is a challenging time for everyone and working together to find a way forward is very important. I am very grateful for everyone’s hard work, parents and staff, juggling work and home commitments.
Having good access to laptops and tablets is a key way for your child to be able to engage with home learning. If you are finding that a lack of devices is preventing your child from fully engaging with home learning or if your child is working from a phone, please get in touch asap and we will hopefully be able to help.
In order for us to try and create a learning environment that is as ‘normal’ as possible for the children and to make the lesson time effective, please can we make sure –
- that the children are not eating during the lesson or playing with toys or other items that they would not be accessing during lesson time in school.
- that parents keep ALL communication and interaction with staff to outside of the lesson so that it does not distract from the learning process. Staff can be contacted, via Teams, during working hours in term time.
- background noise, especially adult conversations – including nearby phone calls, are away from the live lessons.
- everyone is suitably dressed eg no pyjamas.
- your child is ready before the lesson starts – stationery and required resources.
- if you experience any problems accessing an on-line lesson, please contact the school office in the first instance. This will enable the teacher to concentrate on their teaching. If you are able, in the meantime, to access the work via Teams, we will endeavour to resolve any problems before the next lesson but your child may have to miss the live part of the lesson on that occasion. Teachers will invite all pupils before the lesson starts to help alleviate some of the problems experienced. I am sure this will get easier once we get more used to the process.
DFE and Local Authority support –
- Access to remote learning via games consoles: children are able to use an Xbox or Playstation games console instead of a laptop or tablet to access online schooling such as MS Teams or Google Classroom. You can do this on the following devices: Xbox One, Xbox Series S, Xbox Series X, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 4 Pro or PlayStation 5. You will just need a USB Keyboard to plug into that device to enable this function. It just needs to be a working USB keyboard.
Further information for parents can be found here: https://www.pocket-lint.com/apps/news/google/155204-how-to-use-google-classroom-on-xbox-and-playstation
- Data and Access to Technology – the Local Authority continue to receive queries regarding how to support families to access technology, in particular with internet access. Our suggestion is for families to contact their current internet provider if they have one, as many are offering free data to support children’s learning. This includes, BT, Virgin, Three and Vodafone.
Safe in Essex online programme
Please find attached the Safe in Essex Online programme for February, which details a range of online activities to support well-being, for ages 8-19 and families, via Microsoft Teams.
Free Training on Teams session for Parents
Please see attached, and below, information for parents to support the use of Microsoft Teams
Is your child using Teams for remote learning? Are you frozen in fear about helping them as Microsoft Teams for Education is alien to you, and your child? Do you feel like it is just too scary to even try and get your device ready for them to use? Come to 2, two hour sessions where we will help answer any questions and give you a guided explore around TEAMS and any questions you or your child have. The first session will be offered online through ZOOM, just one click and you will be on, and the 2nd session we will get you online onto TEAMS, so you can experience what your children will access for their learning. This will open up doors for your children to learn, whilst remote learning is in place as well as help you to access online support that may be holding you back as a parent.
What have you got to lose? Give it a go!
Free Training on Teams session for Parents
Booking:
http://bit.ly/trainingonteams4Feb
http://bit.ly/trainingonteams11Feb
Bad Weather – staff and children on site
In the event of bad weather we will do our utmost to keep the onsite provision open but if this is not possible we will contact the relevant families.
Learning across the school
Reception
The children in Reception class whether at home or in the Key Worker group at school have been working really hard and are coping brilliantly with their remote learning. Mrs Course is very proud of them. We focus our sessions on Literacy, Maths and Phonics and then have activities set for the afternoon that consolidate this learning, touch on some of the creative elements and encourage outside play and learning.
We are continuing our transport topic this term. We enjoyed celebrating Alfie and Connor’s birthdays and the children have been sharing special objects from home and the work they have been doing with each other. In Reception, we are all part of the ‘Give it a Go’ Club where we make marvellous mistakes – even Mrs Course too!
In Literacy, we have been reading and responding to the book The Train Ride by June Crebbin. We have explored how the rhythm of the words reflect the ‘clickety-clack’ of a train and found rhyming word pairs in the things that the little girls sees through the window. We are now thinking of our own ideas for what else we might see from a train and are beginning to write our own sentences. Here are some examples of the children’s wonderful work:
Barney Astrid
In Maths, we have revised the features of 2D shapes and have been hunting around our house for them! We have also learned how to use a number line and counting resources to find one more and one less than a given number. We are moving on to addition now.
Thomas’ recorded addition Hugo’s recorded addition
In Phonics, we are now learning digraphs and lots of new tricky words. We are beginning to think about using our known sounds for spelling and writing:
Harris
Last week some of the children tried their own versions of the painting Colourful Sailing Boats in a Sunset Sky by Casimira Mostyn.
Sailing boats by Isaac Sailing boats by Willa
Didn’t they do a brilliant job?
Well done Reception, keep up your fabulous efforts.
Year One
Class 1 have been focusing on nouns and verbs and putting them into practice by composing their own sentences and narratives in the style of our current text, a traditional story ‘This is the House that Jack Built’.
We have also been working really hard writing and solving addition and subtraction number sentences using all manner of representations including part whole models, ten frames and bar models.
Class 1 took time to support their wellbeing and looked at how important a hug was. There was also time to make a hug.
Year Two
Class two have had a very busy few weeks of online learning. We have begun our new topic on Ghana, we are comparing Ghana to the UK. The children have been reading ‘a day in the life’ of a child from Ghana and comparing this to their own lives. They have also researched and presented the weather in Ghana last Monday! Linked to this, for Art the children created an African sunset picture. They blended red, orange and yellow in the background and then cut animals and trees from black paper and stuck these over the top. Here are a few examples:
In Science we have been looking at ‘the uses of everyday materials’ this week the children carried out an experiment looking into how different objects can change shape. Here are some pictures:
We also really enjoyed Mr Dyce’s PE session. We all agreed that Hobnob, his dog, was the star! Some of us even got our brothers, sisters, mums, dads and grandparents joining in!
Year Three
Class 3 have been very busy over the last few weeks. The class have been working hard to create their own stories and as part of their next step they have written them in best and will be making recordings of themselves reading their creation.
In maths we have spent time focusing on multiplication and division and now moving onto money.
In art we have reminded ourselves of the primary and secondary colours and are now looking at the work of the artist Van Gogh.
The children have been using their map skills to find mountains of the UK and world as part of our geography topic.
Along with our core learning the children have also been undertaking wellbeing activities, PE and Cosmic Yoga.
Year Four
Class 4 have made a great start to their home learning and have enjoyed their first week of social bubble calls. Most recently we have been busy learning how to multiply 3-digit numbers by 1-digit numbers.
In English we have been using The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe to inspire descriptive writing, similes, and a variety of sentence openers.
In science we have completed some super work on sound creating reports on how sounds are created and travel to our ears. Some of us wrote reports, created PowerPoints and some of us even presented our report on camera.
We have also enjoyed taking part in Mr Snelling and Mr Dyce’s video PE lessons!
Finally, this week in our topic work we have been researching the features of a rainforest and why they are so important to us.
Year Five
Year 5 have made a great start to their online learning, writing engaging and imaginative autobiographies inspired by the ‘residents’ of Pere Lachaise graveyard in Paris and learning about Baghdad in the Golden Age of Islam.
They have learnt the names of rooms of the house in French and have used complementary colours to make bold, impactful winter images.
The children have begun looking at flow charts in computing and are learning about forces in science; they should now be able to tell you who discovered gravity!
In science this week, the children have learnt about air resistance and completed their own parachute experiment – we have enjoyed watching the videos of Lego men falling from staircases!
The class have started the year with a focus on positivity, sharing good news and funny experiences.
Year Six
In English we have been focusing on recounts and the use of formal and informal language. We have studied articles and eyewitness accounts of possible UFO sightings and have written imaginative alien diary recounts.
In Topic we are studying coasts and we have learnt about different types of erosion. We are learning how coastal features such as arches and stacks, bays and headlands are formed by drawing diagrams and writing explanations. In Art we have studied seascapes by a variety of artists. We have looked closely at the work of Turner and compared his style of art to more modern artists and styles.
We have really enjoyed our bubble meetings this week where we have had the opportunity to share news and recommend good books. On Fridays we have been sharing our afternoon work and have loved looking at each other’s artwork and Topic work.
By Max By Abigail
All of Class 6 have coped extremely well with the new form of learning this term – well done!
ACHIEVEMENTS
STAR OF THE WEEK
End of last term announcements
Week ending December 11th
Reception Kyle – for his great enthusiasm and hard work
Year One Evie – for growing more confident in class discussions and sharing her own ideas
Year Two Milly – great effort this week
Year Three Max – for working hard on independent writing in poetry this week
Year Four Joshua – for great understanding of perimeter
Year Five Chloe – super listening and for being a motivated learner
Year Six Olly – for focusing on his work and always trying to do his best
Week ending December 17th
Reception Seren – fantastic reading
Year One Isabella – for showing much more
Year Two Evelyn – for being a kind and helpful friend
Year Three Luna – for being kind and considerate of others and looking after the classroom environment
Year Four Emma – for great effort and enthusiasm in Science
Year Five Oliva – for great focussed learning and for being a motivated learner
Year Six Abigail – for her imaginative and well structured version of France
Spring Term – Lockdown – two ‘stars’ a fortnight
Week ending January 29th
Reception
Nelao – for her brilliant contributions in lessons – “We put our cubes in order when we count them so we don’t get confused.” AND what we might see from a train “bright graffiti”.
Torben – for writing a super sentence about what he might see from a train – a long green anaconda. Also for his brilliant doubling
Year One
Dougray – has greatly improved the structure and content of his writing.
Sophie – has worked hard to improve her understanding of fact families using addition and subtraction calculations.
Year Two
Oscar- having a positive attitude towards home learning.
Evelyn- for always challenging herself in every subject.
Year Three
Bella – for working hard in maths and challenging herself with her learning.
Charlie – for a brilliant Van Gogh inspired piece of artwork.
Year Four
Matilda S – for her fantastic descriptive poem.
Amelia – for her great understanding and hard work in maths
Year Five
Oskar – for fabulous writing with great word choices
Lincoln – for neat work with great effort and attitude in lockdown
Year Six
George – for his imaginative informal recount of a UFO sighting.
Henry – for his excellent diagrams and explanations of how coastal features are formed by erosion.
Key Worker Group
Phoebe (yr1) – for always trying really hard with everything.
Seren (R) – for her enthusiasm and effort in all she does.
I am very proud of the way the children are coping with this unusual situation.
Once again thank you for all the support you are giving the staff and your children. Together we are a strong team providing the best that we can during these challenging times.
Best wishes and stay safe
Rosalind Allsop
Headteacher