Our daily message (04 June 2020)
Our daily message to you today concentrates on home learning – we’ve still got lots of our pupils at home and we’re not going to neglect them.
If you’re at home with your child and are really struggling in some way, please do get in touch. Call us on 0113 264 9149 or send an email to Karen Hague, the Head of School (scholesheadofschool@spherefederation.org). We’ll do our best to support in some way.
In previous messages, we’ve encouraged setting up a routine to support home learning. In case you’ve missed this, we really like the Education Endowment Foundation’s resources to support parents and carers at home, especially this video and really simple tick list which promote routines.
Another piece of advice was to be flexible. This could be in two ways…
One is to be flexible in terms of occasionally breaking the routine so that it works for you and your child. Routines bring with them feelings of safety and security for your child, and breaking them can bring excitement and extra engagement (and ease some pressure for you), as long as it’s not too often.
The other way to be flexible is about the home learning tasks. The four activities here can be used as additional or alternative home learning tasks.
Design competition for the new Leeds Children’s Hospital
Calling all budding architects and designers! Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust is going to build a brand new Leeds Children’s Hospital and they need children’s help to design it.
The judges are looking for design ideas that will make a difference to patients, their families, carers and people who work in the new Leeds Children’s Hospital. The ideas could be:
- an idea that is a practical help (for example, a new way of finding your way around)
- an idea for how the inside or outside of the hospital might look to make patients, families and staff feel like it’s great place to be
- an idea for something to keep patients in touch with their families and friends
- an idea for a space to play, or relax, or spend time with friends and family
- a new idea to inspire their design team in the future
Draw a picture, paint, make a model, write a poem, make it in Minecraft or Lego, make a short video… anything you like – it’s up to your child to decide! Find out more about the competition. Entries are open to anyone under 18 years old and the competition closes on Friday 12 June 2020.
Share your Covid experiences
Across the city, the lives of children and young people have been dramatically impacted by the coronavirus pandemic. They’re having to come to terms with a whole new normal way of living and finding different and innovative ways to cope. The Leeds COVID Diaries Project is a way to capture their experience and will provide a valuable historical snapshot of Leeds for future generations.
People of all ages across Leeds are being invited to share their stories, experiences and thoughts about the coronavirus pandemic, but they’re particularly keen to hear from children, young people and families.
It might be called COVID Diaries, but it doesn’t have to be a diary entry! Your child’s (or your own) entry can be absolutely anything you want and in any format. It can be hand-written, typed, drawn, painted, recorded etc and can be a blog, video diary, song, piece of music, social media post, a photo, a poem, a piece of artwork… Find out more.
Storytelling and drama from Polka Theatre
For younger children, there are four stories to watch a story and then have a go at some of the related activities from Polka Theatre. You could perhaps spread this across four weeks of home learning, choosing one of the following for each week:
Leeds Children’s Mayor 2020
Despite the coronavirus outbreak, Leeds will still hold elections for the next Leeds Children’s Mayor (LCM) this year. Find out more.
Children in Year 5 need to write a manifesto and then send it to us: scholesheadofschool@spherefederation.org.
It’s down to schools to submit the entrants, so send these to us by Friday 12 June. We’ll then make sure we submit entrants to the Leeds Children’s Mayor Team by Wednesday 17 June, the closing date.
Here’s a short video from Wania, the current Children’s Mayor, who explains what she likes about the programme.
Our daily message (03 June 2020)
Yesterday, our schools opened to more children than in the last few weeks – at Scholes (Elmet) Primary and at Moortown Primary, we welcomed around three times as many pupils than in April or June, and St James’ CE Primary opened again following a period of closure when the small number of key worker children attended Moortown or Scholes. We received some nice feedback from parents:
[My son] has come home from school today very happy, saying school was “good” (high praise indeed) and does not seem upset regarding how the school day/classroom set up has changed other than the issue everyone is facing in this lockdown re specific friends not being there. So thank you all again for your hard work in keeping everyone as safe as possible but just as importantly ensuring the children’s emotional well being in school.
Just dropped [my son] off at school. Fantastic welcome from [his teachers]. He went in all smiles…
Here’s the latest Families magazine which is a “surviving lockdown” issue. It’s full of resources and ideas to help with returning your child to school, home learning, pre-school play and has dozens of ideas for family activities and entertainment. (There are even some tips on giving your child a home-haircut!)
Our daily message (02 June 2020)
You might have seen or heard news stories presenting general overview of what it was like yesterday as schools opened up to more children. In today’s message, we’re presenting an overview specifically of our three Sphere Federation schools…
Two specific things have come up:
- one about social distancing – please read our policy on this because we’re following it really strictly
- one about what to bring to school (the answer to this is very little!) – please read this information, especially pages 4 and 5
From St James’ CE Primary…
We’ve had nine children in today. We were expecting 13 but two parents decided last minute (one this morning) that they didn’t want to send their child to school yet. One child is ill but not with COVID-19 symptoms.
The process of coming into school this morning went well. It’s good that we’ve started with small numbers so staff and parents can get use to this routine.
We hope to invite more pupils next week into a new Foundation/KS1 bubble. We’ll leave some space for additional key workers who may need a place in the following weeks, although this is becoming a challenge with the KS2 bubble which is quite full.
From Moortown Primary…
We were expecting 34 children in school but only have 32. The mood in school is positive. Staff are being vigilant but are taking things in their stride well. When I’ve visited classes, children have seemed less confident than usual, but that’s natural and staff say they’re easing into it.
The only big issue was responding to concerns about whether children have been socially distancing at home. We’ve a policy on this and we’re strictly following the policy – this has meant one parent has been asked to collect their child.
Other than that, there haven’t been any other glitches or issues, just a couple of minor teething problems like some parents not understanding the exit route (quickly rectified) – so far so good.
From Scholes (Elmet) Primary…
We’ve 31 children in school. We were expecting a few more but over the last couple of days some parents’ remained concerned while others had their work shifts confirmed/changed.
It was good having low numbers of children because it’s meant that our staff can also get used to working around lots of other adults – it’s important that they social distance, too, so they protect themselves as much as possible and therefore stay healthy to come to school.
Most parents had read the communications that are being sent out. However, we did have some bags brought to school – they got sent home.
Moving forward, we’d like to know if there are any more key workers who are going to need us. These people will continue to be our priority. After that, we’ll look at other children who we deem as being vulnerable.
Our daily message (01 June 2020)
We hope you had a happy and healthy half-term break from routines. The weather was glorious, which certainly helped. Did your child do some of the optional home learning activities? It’s not too late – one of the activities on the list could be an alternative or additional activity to the daily home learning tasks the teacher sets.
We start the week with news about schools opening more widely, some information about the school bubbles, and – as always on a Monday – our new Living and and Learning theme.
Schools opening more widely
This half-term, schools are opening to more and more pupils, although perhaps not as widely as the government and media headlines initially suggested. Research from the National Foundation for Educational Research shows that parents are still roughly split 50-50 about whether they want their child to return to school.
Here are just three of many barriers that schools have faced:
First, our classrooms and class sizes mean we simply can’t accommodate all the children set out in the government’s original plans: children of key workers, children who may be vulnerable in some way, and children from Early Years, Year 1 and Year 6. (The average class size in English primary schools is almost 28 pupils compared to about 20 across Europe – point 4 from this article from the “Independent Sage” group explains this well.)
Second, more and more people are going back to work. This includes more key workers, and that means there are already more children for us to welcome back, which in turn means the specific year groups identified by government aren’t returning quite as quickly as the government called for.
And third, we’ve fewer staff at a time when we need more. To operate smaller groups, and to ensure social distancing and cleaning, we need lots of staff. However, not all our staff are able to be in school because of particular health conditions or other personal circumstances.
The school bubbles
We’re committed to having more and more pupils back, and making this happen as safely as we can. We’ve established bubbles in our schools. Some of these bubbles might have space for more pupils, others less so.
At Scholes (Elmet) Primary, we have eight bubbles at this stage: Foundation 2, Year 1, Year 2, Year 3, Year 4, and three Years 5/6. There are two adults for each bubble to allow for breaks and cleaning. Over the week, we’ll look closely at the number of children attending – we may find some parents who said they wanted a place change their mind, in which case we’ll offer the place to other pupils.
Living and learning during lockdown
Living and Learning is the name for all the teaching and learning we do around Personal, Social, Health and Economic Education (PSHE). As we start a new half term, our theme in Living and Learning changes to relationships. Each week in school, we’ve a Living and Learning statement. I listen to, share with and include others… is our statement this week. One of the Sphere Federation Health Leaders writes:
This Living and Learning statement promotes polite, helpful and kind behaviour. We want our pupils to know the importance of showing respect to everyone (whatever differences we may have) and to everything (whether it’s a school resource, a religious belief or whatever). Respect is central to one of our three school rules: We respect everyone and everything.
You might want to read the poem, Say something nice, taken from The Little Book of Hopes with your child. While most of us are still at home, this week’s statement relates more to family than friends right now. You might want to encourage your child to spot when someone in your house follows this statement and listens to, shares with and includes others. How would they know? How does it make others feel?
Also, as we start a new month, check out the Action for Happiness Kindness Calendar for June with thirty actions to look after ourselves and each other.
Important message for next week #3
You’ll be aware that last night the Prime Minister confirmed that the five tests upon which the easing of lockdown depended have been met. As a result, primary schools will begin to open schools more widely.
The response to this from the Director of Children and Families, Leeds City Council, is:
The Leeds position is unchanged. It is important for children to resume their education so they can once again learn and interact with their peers but that this is done in such a way that the risks to pupils, staff and parents are minimised as much as possible. We know that every school is different and your offer to pupils will vary according to your unique set of circumstances. We will continue to support [headteacher] decisions about the timing and level of phased return for children to school that are based on the comprehensive risk assessments you have been diligently undertaking.
The position in Sphere Federation schools is unchanged, too. We’ll continue to prioritise the growing numbers of children from key workers (as more people are expected back to work, there’s more demand for places in school) and children who may be vulnerable in some way. After this, we’ll look at increasing numbers of children in Reception, Year 1 and Year 6, and we’ll aim to balance this by considering safety in school and the needs of children and families in other year groups.
At Moortown Primary and at Scholes (Elmet) Primary, the number of pupils next week is likely to be over three times as many as on a typical ‘lockdown week’ so far.
There are two more important messages for today.
Agreeing a place for your child
Only come to school if we’ve confirmed there’s a place for your child. Please note we only have a small amount of room for manoeuvre. We can’t allow more children without carefully checking the numbers we have already: each of the ‘bubbles’ can only take so many without undermining safety.
Social distancing
This morning, school leaders across the federation have agreed the following course of action if we have concerns about social distancing:
- continue a conversation with the child in an informal, friendly way – this will help us to gain a better understanding and (hopefully) reassure ourselves that social distancing has not been undermined (we won’t ask any leading questions)
- contact the child’s parents / carers to discuss what the child has said and to clarify the situation
- isolate the child away from the rest of the children in their ‘bubble’ while we wait for more clarification from the child or their parents / carers
Important message for next week
This half-term is proving to be super-sunny so hopefully you and your family have managed to spend some happy and healthy time outside. Please remember to make sure you’re all staying two metres away from others and not gathering in large groups, wherever you are, and remember to wash your hands before you head out and when you come back in again.
Here’s another reminder of what’s happening next week…
On Monday 01 June, we’ll be closed for all children. This is so that we can prepare for increasing numbers over the following weeks.
From Tuesday to Friday, school will be open for those using it as they are already and for some additional children. By now, we’ll have contacted you, we’ve agreed for your child to come back, and you’ll know that your child is expected.
Your child should only attend school if this has been agreed. Please don’t just turn up – we won’t have a safe place for your child at this stage.
Read more about Scholes (Elmet) Primary opening to more pupils.
Whole school 'Quiz of the Week'
If you’re struggling to keep yourself entertained this week…why not have a go at our whole school quiz?
Important message for next week
We hope the sun helped make the bank holiday weekend at least a bit more pleasurable than a typical lockdown weekend.
This is a reminder of what’s happening next week…
On Monday 01 June, we’ll be closed for all children. This is so that we can prepare for increasing numbers over the following weeks.
From Tuesday to Friday, school will be open for those using it as they are already and for some additional children. By now, we’ll have contacted you, we’ve agreed for your child to come back, and you’ll know that your child is expected.
Your child should only attend school if this has been agreed.
Please don’t just turn up – we won’t have a safe place for your child at this stage.
The original government message about particular year groups returning appears to be slightly shifting to simply opening up schools to more pupils. This makes sense. As more people return to work, including more key workers returning to work, we’re already welcoming more pupils back next week – up to three times as many, based on your survey response.
Whole School Quiz
Something to get your brains working and make you smile.
Happy long weekend everyone!
Stay happy and healthy
Get creative with Hello HipHop
We have been keeping in touch with Phil from Hello HipHop. He has created some blank lettering for our school name and a guide showing how to do some different effects.
It would be nice to have some of your ideas to display on the website and in school. If you would like, you can print this blank lettering and add effects or you can create your own ‘Scholes’ graffiti art with your own lettering. Send your ideas to Y2scholeshomework@spherefederation.org
Get creative!
