Dear Parents

Another week has flown by, but I do believe the mornings are beginning to lighten that little bit earlier, so the doom and gloom of January is starting to lift.

To try and help everyone in our school community feel connected, I thought it would be useful to provide a further update this week.

The school based children have adjusted well to their smaller groups and having the classroom used as a recording studio! The engagement with our home based learning from all the children and parents continues to be incredibly high. The Teachers enjoy receiving regular correspondence from parents and the children’s Maths and English work for feedback. Feedback is most effective if the work is sent in every or alternate days, so the comments are relevant and provide the child’s next steps ready for their next piece of learning.

Next week, to help increase some social interaction for all the children, the Teachers are going to arrange a Teams meeting with the children. Your child will be invited to join a session with their class Teacher and a group of their classmates to enjoy some well-being and social interaction activities. The Teachers will contact the home based families on Dojo or Tapestry to arrange a time and to confirm the email address you wish them to send the invite. To help these sessions run smoothly we have added some guidelines, based on the DfE framework, for taking part in the Teams meetings and would appreciate if you discuss the relevant points with your child before their meeting.

Parental Guide to using Teams with children:

• Live Teams meetings should be held on a device when in a shared area at home (never alone in a bedroom).
• Children should be dressed appropriately for doing their school work and having a meeting.
• Other family members should be made aware of the live meeting occurring, so they can act appropriately when present in the background.
• During the live session, Parents and other family members should give the children space to participate independently and in a relaxed manner.
• Please wait in the Lobby area until the Teacher admits you to the live session.
• The message area is visible for all to see, so needs to be used appropriately.
• When joining a live meeting make sure the microphone is on mute and wait for the Teacher to tell you when to open/unmute the microphone during the session.
• Everybody should use polite and respectful language.
• You will be asked permission if the live Teams session is going to be recorded by the school. Screen-shots or recordings should not be made by anyone else.
• No images or recordings of the live sessions will be shared within or outside the school environment and no images should be reposted or used on social media.
• Personal data, such as names or other information that may be heard or seen should not be shared.
• Normal standards of classroom behaviour are to be expected. If they are not adhered to, access to these sessions will be removed.
• These live Teams sessions are for the children to enhance their wellbeing and social interaction and are not intended for parental feedback or discussion – if you wish to discuss an individual matter, please contact your child’s class Teacher by email or Dojo/Tapestry.

We look forward to seeing all the children on Teams next week.

Despite all the current limitations, I hope you have a pleasant weekend – a long walk and puddle jumping is on the agenda for my family!

Kind regards

Hannah