School Update 11/09/2020

A Message from the Headteacher…

Good afternoon everyone,

Firstly, welcome back!  It has been so good to see you all again and have your children in school.  This week has been pretty crazy organising our new ‘norm’ but what a positive week it has been!

All the children have been amazing and have settled into school really well and have taken on the new changes.  It is very apparent that all the hard work you put in supporting us with home learning has paid off and the children are in a good positive place to continue their learning.  

Each day, every class has a planned wellbeing time to address what we have been through with COVID and how we can recover and use our experiences as positives, making us stronger moving forward.  We will continue with these sessions for as long as is needed to ensure children’s wellbeing is positive and they are in a good place to learn.  

There are inevitably gaps in children’s learning which we are already subtly assessing and addressing.  This week we have focused on phonics and reading and every child should now have a home reading book.  We are starting our ‘5X reader’ from next week so please could we ask you to listen to your child every night and write in their planner.  

There are new routines for parents and teachers as well, which we are all getting used to.  Thank you for your positive comments about our one way system and keeping to 2m distancing.  It means that parents can drop their children off in school grounds rather than dropping off at the gate.  I hope you have also found the extended time for drop off and different pick up times manageable.  Hopefully as we move forward and get into a routine we can reduce the drop off period.  Please help us to keep safe and continue to be able to have parents drop off and pick up in school grounds by keeping socially distanced and not stopping unless you need to.

Unfortunately there are some things we will not be able to do this term, particularly having parents in school other than in an emergency.  We are working on how we can share class celebration assemblies and have online events instead, particularly as we move towards Christmas.  Please be reassured the children will be taking part in lots of celebrations and plays/performances this year but these will probably have to be shared via ParentHub with you.  A list of what is happening in school and how we will share them with you will be shared with you as soon as we can.  Please can I also ask that parents do not come to the office unless it is an emergency and to ring the office instead.  

Handwashing is a priority in school and children are washing their hands lots of times throughout the day so children do not need to bring hand sanitiser into school.  Because of the alcohol content in hand sanitisers we have to be careful and won’t be able to allow children to bring them to school. 

In the next few weeks, you will be notified about flu vaccinations (given as a nasal spray) for your child which will be administered in school by the local health team.  Please can I ask you to sign up your child to have it as, more than ever this year, it will help your child fight off some infections.   

Children are tired (as are we!) but have absolutely shone this week and we are so proud of them.  Please check our website as we will be posting pictures of children learning in school this week.

Thank you for all your support and acceptance of new systems around school.

Have a great weekend and see you on Monday.

Mrs Fletcher

For School dinners week commencing 21st September please order on the ParentPay booking system by Sunday 13th September.

Please note that if meals have not been booked you will have to provide a packed lunch.

Well done Team Calder for achieving 100%