Thank you all for your support this week in helping us to welcome back the pupils safely. The pupils have all been excellent at adapting to the new hand washing routines, staggered breaks and staggered dinner times.
Our staggered starts have helped us to allow the children to enter into school safely. However several concerns have been raised by staff and parents over the crowding on the pavements in the morning particularly at the infant end of the school. I appreciate that the space around the school is limited however you need to help us by ensuring that your child arrives at their gate on their allocated time and that 2m distancing is maintained as you wait on the pavements. Some children have been arriving at 10 to 9 instead of 9 and this makes it very difficult for us to keep the bubbles separate. I understand that this is sometimes caused by a sibling having to arrive earlier however you can help by arriving towards the end of the first allocated time for the first child so that the second child only has a small wait. You can also help by only one parent bringing your child to school and leaving the pavement as soon as your child has entered the building.
To create some extra space from 14th September, the large gate will be opened for Class 2 (Mrs. Williams) pupils to go straight from the pavement into the yard at 8:50. Mrs. Williams will be waiting at the inside gate to welcome the children whilst Mrs. Ashby will be waiting to support the children with their coats and bags.
We are working extremely hard with our new routines to keep the children safe but this can only be maintained if social distancing rules are also followed outside of the school gate. Next week full classes of children will be entering the school at their given time and the whole of nursery will also be attending for the morning only and so it will become even more important that children do not arrive early and that social distancing is maintained.
Timings from 14th September
Class
Arrive Between
Leave
Entrance
Nursery
9:10 to 9:20
11:30
Main Entrance
Class 1
Mrs. Thomas
9:00 to 9:10
3:00
Main Entrance
Class 2
Mrs. Williams
8:50 to 9:00
3:10
Main Entrance
Class 3
Mrs. Davies
8:50 to 9:00
3:10
Junior Door
Class 4
Mr. Allen
9:00 to 9:10
3:20
Junior Door
Homework.
Homework for classes from Reception to year 6, will be set on Hwb every week from September 18th. All pupils will be checking their Hwb logins next week and a copy will be sent home for parents. Homework will consist of spelling words, tables and an oracy or practical activity. This work will be followed up in class through testing and discussion work. It is very important that children and parents become familiar with logging into Hwb from home.
Reading Books.
Each class will have their own collection of reading books for pupils to take home and read. When books are returned they will be placed in an isolation box until the following week when they will become available for use again.
Music lessons.
Due to the current circumstances, violin and brass lessons will not be continuing this year. Instead, Mrs. Marsden from the Cerdd music service will be providing whole class music lessons every Wednesday for classes 3 and 4.
Breakfast Club.
Breakfast club will resume from September 28th. It will start at 8:20 and pupils will be able to arrive between 8:20 and 8:40. Pupils attending will sit at a table with their own class bubbles. At 8:50 they will go directly to their classes. The new start time will enable a smooth move from the hall to class without the previous 10 minutes of yard time which the pupils previously had.
PE Days
Please can your child come to school wearing their PE Kit on their allocated day. (Trainers, joggers / leggings, T-shirt, school jumper)
When possible PE will be done outside. If the weather does not allow for this, PE will be done in small groups in the hall.
Nursery – Thursday
Class 1. (Mrs. Thomas) – Monday
Class 2. (Mrs. Williams) – Tuesday
Class 3. (Mrs. Davies) – Thursday
Class 4. (Mr. Allen) – Friday
Communication with parents.
We have worked extremely hard over the past few years to bring parents and carers into school for events and information sharing meetings and it is so disappointing for us that we will not be able to involve parents and carers in school events this year. Already we have decided that we will not be putting on Christmas concerts but we haven’t ruled out the possibility of an outdoor summer concert and leavers presentation for Y6 next July. We hope to keep you involved in your child’s daily experiences through plenty of photographs on Schoop and videos on our website. Teachers will be maintaining their fortnightly news to parents through Schoop. We will be celebrating the hard work of the children through Star of the Week and Welsh speaker of the week. These celebrations will be held in class and will continue to be sent out through Schoop and individual certificates. We will be doing our very best to make the school day for the children as interesting as possible whilst making their safety our priority.
We look forward to welcoming all of our pupils back next week.
