After our first complete week of the new ‘closure’ arrangements, it’s good to take stock of where we are. There’s at least four more weeks of this to come!
I am grateful to all those parents who responded to my messages last week by looking again at their arrangements for keeping children off school. In some cases, parents were able to reduce the days they needed, and in other cases they weren’t, which was fine. We are, of course, happy to remain open to those who need us. Our highest numbers this week were 70 – a third of our total children.
Remote learning
The majority of our parents are keeping their children at home. We have all been really impressed with how the children have engaged with remote learning on their Google Classroom and the support they are receiving from you. Parents really are doing a fantastic job with all this, especially as there are many other things to juggle at home at the moment.
There’s a few things I’d like to mention about remote learning please:
1. Turning in work
Teachers will only ask for 1 piece of work per day to be turned in please. Feedback will be provided for this piece. We won’t be putting times on any due dates though – please turn it in when you’re ready (but preferably the same day!). We’re trying not to put too much pressure on families with this.
2. Chromebook loan
A number of parents I’ve spoken to are struggling with devices at home – they either haven’t got enough or they’re not up to the job. Please don’t forget that we are happy to lend out chromebooks, so please ask if you’d like one and it would make life easier. Even if you’ve got one device being shared by more than one child, we can help with an extra chromebook. Please just ask; we’re keen to help.
3. Remote Education Plan
I have written a plan and added it to a new website page – under ‘Learning’ and ‘Remote Education’. The plan is draft at the moment but describes how we’re organising everything for you. There are also some other links you may find useful.
Video meetings
It’s only been two weeks but we’re missing the children at home already! It’s been great to see your photos of children working at home – please keep sending them in as we’ll use them in our weekly blogs. We’ve got our heads together to come up with two more ways to keep children at home connected with school.
1. Teacher Touchdowns
If your child has not been in school at all, we’ll be organising an individual 5/10 minute video chat for them with their teacher. We’ll send a meeting link through the child’s Google Classroom. As well as allowing teachers a chance to see and speak to your child, we hope children will enjoy this opportunity to speak directly to their teacher. Details will come through the Classrooms, so keep an eye on the streams.
2. Whole School assemblies
Plans are afoot for assemblies that children can join in with from home and school. More details to come next week.
We’ll use Google Meet for both the touchdowns and the assemblies. Meet is very straightforward to use and integrates easily with Google Classroom.
Stormbreak
We are planning some work with a charity called Stormbreak to help with children’s mental health. We’ve not really got started yet – the lockdown is not helping – but they have sent out some information for parents in the meantime which you may find useful: www.stormbreak.org.uk/howtohelp. If you wish to, please have a look. We’d be interested in what you think.
That’s enough from me. The following are links I’ve been asked to share with you:
From the Family Advisor, Chesil Locality Team
Please find information about our Parenting Skills & Strategies drop-in sessions that have started again.
Please note that attendance is only by appointment – there is information on the form about how to book.
From the Blue Peter team
We have launched Blue Peter on YouTube at CBBC and we were wondering if your pupils and parents would be interested in this, for entertainment outside of home-schooling hours now we’re in lockdown.
Blue Peter is the longest running kids’ TV show in the world and we are uploading videos to it that are suitable for 5-11 year olds. We have world record breaking challenges, arts and crafts, environmental videos, cooking and baking how tos, inspirational films, gaming, celebrity appearances, dance routines and music performances. We also feature ways of getting a Blue Peter badge, behind the scenes footage and extra content about our incredible presenters Adam, Lindsey, Mwaksy, Richie and Henry the Blue Peter dog.
Thanks so much for your time
The Blue Peter Team!