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Red Nose thank you

Thanks to everyone for their contributions to our Red Nose Day.

We managed to raise an impressive £403.60

I’m sure we manage to raise more and more each year!  Your generosity is very much appreciated.

Today’s message (Tuesday 02 March 2021)

All this week, we’re letting you know things about next week and beyond, when we welcome all our children back at school…

Covid-19 tests

There’s been a lot of talk in the media about secondary schools testing students, but did you know that all households with children of school age can get two rapid Covid-19 tests per person per week?

The tests aren’t 100% reliable. They sometimes don’t detect a positive case, (giving a ‘false negative’) so we can’t rely on the tests – we all still need to follow hands-face-space precautions. However, the more people who use the tests, the more we can all do to detect positive cases (and if the tests do indicate positive, it’s really likely to be accurate – ‘false positives’ are rare).

Our staff have been testing themselves for a few weeks now. At first, they’re a bit of a hassle, but you soon get used to do them – and it can help to give you that extra peace of mind (even though we still make sure we’re following all the other safety precautions).

Find out how to order tests for you and your family.

Medicines in school

When we reopen to all pupils on Monday 08 March, it’s really important that we have the most up to date medical information for your child. If anything has changed that you think we don’t already know about, please let us know as soon as possible.

On a similar note, please remember to check we have enough medicine (including inhalers) in school, and that it’s still within its use by date – after a period of time away, it’s easy to forget about this. It’s your responsibility to ensure that medication in school is sufficient and has not expired. This is particularly important for inhalers and adrenaline auto-injectors (such as EpiPens).

Extra layers

We mentioned the hands-face-space message earlier, but ventilation is increasingly believed to be an effective way to help stop the spread of the virus. This means windows and doors in school will be open more than they normally would. Please make sure your child is wearing enough layers to stay warm indoors.

Look out for more information about school from Monday 08 March onwards tomorrow.

Phonics Thursday 25.02.21

Apologies for any difficulties accessing the phonics video yesterday and links to the tricky word colouring.

These have now been updated if you wish to revisit the activities.

Amazing Writing!

It’s lovely when people send in their learning – as teachers, we really want to see it!

Thanks to these superstars who have sent in their writing recently. There’s lots of things I love about these pieces – pay particular attention to the impactful vocabulary and the varied sentence starters. Well done, everyone!

Week Commencing 01.02.20: Home Learning

Story Link activities to select throughout the week

Literacy

1. In class, use Talk4Writing actions to help us retell and act out the stories we learn. After listening to the story, see if you can come up with some actions. You could get an adult to record you and send it to your class teacher!
   To help you get started, click here to watch an example.
2. Dear Zoo is a ‘lift-the-flap’ book. Make your own ‘lift-the-flap’ book. You could choose your favourite animals to be underneath each of the flaps. Then, write a sentence underneath each flap. For each sentence try to write the name of the animal and a describing word.

A writing reminder…
How did your child find the writing activity? Remember, it’s okay for things to be spelt phonetically. It is important that your child grows into an independent learner. Encouraging your child to write the words as they sound rather than always spelling them correctly. We encourage the children to use their own skills, rather than copying an adult.

Understanding the World

Choose an animal from the book. With the help of an adult, research and find out information about that animal.
Where is its natural habitat? What does it eat? What does it like to do? When the animal lives in a zoo, what does a zookeeper need to do to look after it?
You could use this website or find one of your own.

Maths
1. Choose two or three animal toys. Go on a hunt around your house for different containers. Explore which containers your animals will fit in. Can you explain why they fit in some containers but not others?

2.Patterns are everywhere! Can you recognise any of these animal patterns? Draw your own animal pattern on a piece of paper.

Expressive Arts and Design
Make a lion mask.

Resources:
Paper plate
1 sheet of yellow and orange paper
Scissors
Glue
Instructions:
1. Cut out the inside of a paper plate, leaving only the outside circle.
2. Cut strips of yellow and orange paper.
3. Glue the yellow and orange paper to the paper plate circle, creating a lion’s mane.
4. Make sure they give a loud ROAR!

 Physical Development

1. Get moving and dance along to these songs!

Animal Boogie

Let’s go to the Zoo

2. Make a paper chain snake. This is a great funky fingers activity!
   Resources:
   Paper (any colours you’d like to use)
   Scissors
   Stapler
   Glue
   Googly eyes
   Instructions:
   1. First, decide on which colours you want to use. You could use two or three colours and try to make your snake a repeating pattern, for example, red, orange, red, orange.
   2. Cut strips of each colour.
   3. With an adult, use a stapler or glue to connect the chains.
   4. Add a head by cutting out a triangle and gluing it to the first chain. You could also add a tail!
   5. Glue googly eyes on the head and add a red tongue, then you’re done!

Zoom

Hall of home learning fame 

Thanks for sending in your amazing work. This week I’d like to celebrate Leiyah’s beautifully presented writing and creative planets model. 

We’re closed to all pupils today

We’re closed today because of the very icy conditions and the forecast that this will continue throughout the day.

Key staff for each bubble in school would struggle to get into school safely.

Please check out our Home learning page.

Today’s message – an update (Thursday 13 January 2021)

We try to alert you the day before if we become aware of weather conditions that may affect school openings, although we don’t make any decisions until the morning. Even then, though, it’s a tough call.

When we make the decision, we base it on two main factors: the current weather and the forecast.

Based on these two factors, there’s a very high likelihood that school will be closed tomorrow. This is based on the current amount of snow and the forecast for continuing sub-zero temperatures over night and throughout the day tomorrow. Travel conditions will be dangerous for you and for our staff.

Many schools in the area have already made the decision to close. Please begin to make arrangements now so that you’re prepared – as I say, it’s very likely.

The situation in school is made more challenging at the moment because we need to have different staff to support children in their different bubbles. To try to prevent the spread of coronavirus, we can’t mix children and we can’t move staff. Children in school can’t join with others and be supervised by a limited number of staff who have managed to get to school; adults can’t move to support children in another bubble. (A simple example is that if three children from one bubble are in school, we’d have a minimum of two staff to support and supervise. However, if the three children are from three different bubbles, we’d need at least double the adults.)

Don’t forget you can access home learning here on the website: go to the Learn more section and select Home learning from the drop down menu, or click on this link. (It would be best in most cases to do lessons from Thursday or Friday.)

Thank you for your understanding and support.

08 January 2021: Home Learning

07 January 2021: Home Learning