Dear Parent / carer

As pupils return to school I thought the following App may be useful for you.

CorrMed, together with sponsors from GOJO and Gama have created a completely free to use game for young children to help them learn about hand washing.  I am delighted to say it has been endorsed by Infection Prevention Society (UK).

It is available for Android phones and there is a web version.

The app can be found here

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.tipitap.handwash&hl=en

 Links to both the web version and the Android app can be found from this page

www.handwashsquad.com

Dear Parent / Carer,

As we start the first day of the Summer holidays, I wanted to take this opportunity to wish you all a wonderful Summer Holiday. It has been another challenging year for everyone in the world of education, in school and for all our families as a result of the COVID-19 Pandemic so I would like to start by thanking you all for your additional understanding, patience and support over the last few months.

I would also like to thank staff across the whole school who have made it possible to support those of you continuing your learning at home but also making it possible to remain open throughout the whole period to our keyworkers and children attending from Reception, Year1, Year 6. In addition, they have also supported transition for Year 2 pupils moving to Upper School. It never ceases to impress me the resilience, determination, and commitment of the whole school.

Also, I fully appreciate how demanding and exhausting the endeavour to home school has been therefore on behalf of all the staff and Governors can I thank you as parents / carers for all that you have done to support your child through this unprecedented period and keeping in touch through messages, emails, sending pictures and completing tasks shared on our school website.

Now we are looking forward to September and plans to reopen to all pupils and considering what this will look like, we are of course excited to plan for a return to school for all pupils. Myself, Senior leaders and The Governing Body have been constantly reviewing the provision we have been able to provide over the last four months and are now developing detailed plans to make sure we can safely welcome all of our children back in September.  Thank you, once again, as parents and carers for the patience, support, and kind comments during these past few difficult months while we strive to continue to support all in our school community.

Currently, risk assessments are being developed in line with current government guidance to ensure that protective and safety measures are in place for all staff and children when Reception to Year 6 return to school on Thursday 3rd September 2020 with Nursery restarting on Monday 7th. Both school sites will continue to look different and some routines will be somewhat different too.

Restart Information

Reception Children should continue to be dropped off and collected from the school car park and Nursery children dropped off at the gate to the Nursery outdoor play area.

Inside the school building current plans are to maintain bubbles by planning for staff, play areas, playtimes and lunches to be staggered and separated. A ‘bubble’ will comprise no more than 2 classes maximum allowing us to run the day to day routines and procedures required, like lunchtimes. Bubbles will be set up for Early Years (Nursery and Reception), Keystage 1 (Years 1 and 2), Lower Keystage 2 (years 3 and 4) and Upper Keystage 2 (years 5 and 6).

There will be no before or after-school provision in the first week (3^rd/4^th September), however we are planning to reintroduce Breakfast Club from Monday 7th September 2020. This may initially be for particular year groups and we are looking at the best way to provide a Keystage 2 breakfast club if possible. Breakfast club will be booked in advance and we will contact all families who currently use it upon our return to book places running from 8am. Children will probably need to be sat and socially distanced from other children.

Whilst we continue to look at the potential to run after school clubs, we will not be making this provision available until after the first half term. This will remain under review by myself, Senior leaders, and the governing body. We will decide before the end of the first half term about the remainder of the Autumn term.

When dropping off and collecting we continue to ask that you do not gather on the playground are at doorways and keep to 1 adult per child / family. Should you need to discuss anything with the class teacher we ask that you follow current procedures and contact them by phone or via school email. If your child receives medication, we will ask you to contact the school office to arrange drop off and collection if necessary.

Current procedures for moving around the school including access points, one-way systems and removal of gatherings like assemblies will continue.

Uniform – like now, we will be suspending the wearing of school uniform and ask that your child continues to wear a clean change of clothes each day. For older children they may wish to wear their sports gear rather than bring a change of clothes to school. Children should not bring anything other than themselves, coat, hat (if necessary) packed lunch and water bottle. We must minimise the amount of objects moving between school and home setting. We will provide all other resources required and this will greatly reduce the movement of items between households and the school setting.

Our curriculum will change for at least the first half term to include a recovery curriculum approach, an increase in personal, social and emotional lessons based on Jigsaw Curriculum planning, a range of short tests and check-ups to ascertain each child’s individual needs and requirements. We will however start with foundation subjects for each year group from the second week. Details of the half term curriculum were sent out in my previous letter.

For those children who missed the Year 1 phonics test, the Government has also introduced the requirement to test these children within the Autumn term. All other end of year testing will also resume within the new year.

Some aspects of the curriculum including homework will be placed online using the various e learning platforms that have been established over the lockdown period and we will survey parents in September to better understand children’s internet access. Reading materials are currently running online along with Class Dojo and all these will remain in place come September, especially in case of local lockdowns.

We are currently making plans to ensure that we can provide meals to all children whilst meeting the current guidance not to have children facing each other whilst having lunch – for some classes this may mean that they continue to take their lunch in the classroom they are working in.

We will need to maintain social distancing and maintain appropriate levels of cleanliness, this will include separating Year group Bubbles, accessing through different doorways and at different times. We will update all families with final times and access routes in August along with an update to the current reopening action plan. Hygiene measure will also include using handwashing / hand sanitiser at key points throughout the day, as at present.

If a child becomes ill during the school day, we will ask that they are collected immediately and are taken home. Children who display coronavirus type symptoms or children who live with someone who has coronavirus will not be able to attend school. Isolation and self-isolation rules MUST be followed. If a child or an adult in their group is confirmed as having the virus, the whole group including the staff working with that group, will be sent home immediately to self-isolate in line with Public Health England advice.

Whilst we anticipate these are some of the measures we will be taking to reopen in September we also know that guidance, and therefore plans, may change before then. Further details and any changes will be shared with you with as much notice as possible to support your family and child’s routines from September.

To finish I must also add that as difficult as this period has been, it continues to be a great pleasure and a true privilege to be Head teacher of Leadgate Primary School and I look forward to seeing you all in September.

I wish you a very enjoyable and relaxing summer break and every good wish for success and happiness to all our Year 6 children as they have now left the school to face their future in the Academy.

Your sincerely

Mr M A Watson

Year 6 Summer Reading Fun – Plus Prize Draw!

Miss Horth from the Academy’s Learning Resource Centre (LRC) has put together a fantastic collection of summer reading suggestions, challenges and printables for our incoming Year 7s. She’s also running a special book review competition – all you need to do is fill in a really short online book review form to be in with a chance of winning a free book!

Simply click on https://wke.lt/w/s/rFht29 to find out more.

Online Admission Data & Consent Form

As part of our admission process, we require all parent/carers to complete a Student Admission Data and Consent Pack. 

To aid this process we have introduced an online form bit.ly/2BvnuKf for you to complete.   

Can we please ask if you can complete asap?

We are looking forward to seeing our new Year 7 on Thursday 3rd September. 

We hope you have a great summer.

Dear Parent / Carer,

Please see below for further updates in preparation for reopening in September and some information on reports and parents evenings for all classes.

Early Years

As you will already have received your letters we are continuing to plan for Nursery and Reception to restart their phased reintroduction in September with Mrs Nesom moving with her class to Year 1, Mrs Bowe will be moving with the majority of her class to Reception and Mrs Pedro will be taking over in Nursery. Our previous letter sets out start dates and times. Support staff will remain the same on Lower school site and continue to work with children although some may be allocated to new classes.

Keystage 1

Miss Weaver will remain in Year 2 and be joined in Keystage 1 by Mrs Nesom who will remain as our school SENCo. We will also be welcoming back Miss Keeler after her maternity leave. Support staff will remain the same on Lower school site and continue to work with children although some may be allocated to new classes. For our Year 2 pupils we ask that you check out the school website (news or Blog) for a virtual tour of Upper School and some important information from Mrs Hannon.

Keystage 2

In Keystage 2 staff will remain as stable as possible given that our older children will already be aware of which class they are going to and will no doubt get back into the usual routines and expectations of Upper School much quicker than our youngest children. To support identified pupils in Year 3 transition to upper school Miss Faye Morgan will also be spending a couple of days a week for the first few weeks working alongside her usual pupils from Year 2. We are also pleased that we have been able to offer a short transition experience for all of Year 2 before the end of the Summer term.

Staffing 2020 – 2021

Support staff will also be working within each year group alongside designated 1 to 1 support staff

Reports

End of year reports will be available to collect next week from each school site from 9.30am on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday (unless your child is already attending school in which case they will bring them home with them). Year 6 will also have an opportunity to say goodbye on Thursday next week only (10:00- 12:00)

For obvious reasons our reports can only cover the period up to the end of the Spring term. Should you require more than 1 copy please notify the school office so that they can prepare multiple copies.

Parents Evening

As we are still unable to hold our usual parents evening we will be sending out a text on Tuesday to give you the opportunity to make a telephone appointment with your child’s class teacher should you wish to discuss any aspect of the end of year report.

Special Educational Needs

In order to support the return of our SEN pupils Mrs Nesom will be in contact with identified families over the next week to book a provisional meeting for Wednesday 2^nd,Thursday 3^rd or Friday 4^th September should you wish to discuss your child’s needs as school reopens. She has been actively following up other professional services, to ensure as much as possible, that access to your child’s other professional services continue.

Class Dojo

As you will be aware, we are continuing to develop our online learning and access to teaching staff should the school be in a position of a local lockdown and we are required to revert to e learning. Therefore, this week we have already text out to all parents to ask that you join Class Dojo. If you haven’t already done so please contact the school office for your child’s personal pin in preparation for September. Your child’s new class teacher will be sharing a welcome message and relevant information via Class Dojo.

I am sure that you will have further questions to ask about how the school will be reopening in September and we still have a lot of work to do to organise this, however, I hope that this information will help you and your child know how we are ending this term and some parts of the provisional plans we are putting in place to reopen to all children in September.

Kind Regards

Mr Mark Watson

Head Teacher

Leadgate Primary School

Please see and share the following links with your child to help them with their transition to Year 3 and Upper School site

Welcome to Upper school Virtual Tour

Year 2 to Year 3 Transition Parents meeting

Parent booklet meeting Year 3

Dear Parent / Carer,

Since my last letter, myself and the governing body have made several decisions on the reopening of school given the current guidance we have. Whilst the guidance can change and at short notice we are moving ahead with what we can and that currently is an understanding that potentially all children will be returning to school in September and that means all years being open at the same time. Whilst this will continue to mean some logistical changes like rotas for using the hall, playtimes etc there are some decisions that we can progress with now.

Firstly, that when school reopens staff will also require time to re-establish classroom settings, resources and prepare for a new curriculum. Therefore 2 staff training days have been moved from elsewhere within the year to allow for this and this will also remove having part weeks later in the year.

Secondly, that EYFS and new starters will still require a phased transition to deal with returning and changing rooms settings, teachers etc.

Thirdly, we recognise that returning to school after such a longer period of absence will be difficult for many children, not least our youngest in Early Years Provision, therefore we have made the decision that when our youngest children return they will move to their new class with the same teacher. This means that Mrs Bowe will move up to take Reception class and Mrs Nesom will move up to Year 1. Mrs Pedro will take over within Nursery for both 15 hr and 30 hr children whilst Miss Weaver will remain in Year 2.

Along with some initial staffing changes we will also introduce a new Recovery Curriculum that will run, for at least, the first half term (7 weeks) and focus upon re-establishing school procedures, deal with coverage of curriculum areas lost since March and assess where the children are socially, emotionally and academically when they restart. The intention of our Recovery Curriculum is to provide opportunities to rebuild relationships and a sense of community, space to re-establish a sense of self and to relearn behaviour for learning skills. The focus will be gently returning to some semblance of routine whilst enabling play, outdoor exploration and physical development. In between and in addition to these sessions, there will be timetabled sessions of physical activity and assessment of English and Maths skills  to ensure children reengage with learning in a positive manner and teachers are able to ascertain clear starting points to move children forward.  Planning for this can be extended or reduced to suit the needs of the class. However, every child and class is different so they may need more or less time to get back to ‘normal’.

Class Teachers will therefore have enough flexibility to apply and use a Recovery curriculum within the first 2 weeks of the new term to focus upon rebuilding and developing social, emotional skills and so children feel safe and nurtured. The following 5 weeks will then focus upon review and recovery of the previous Year groups Summer term key objectives revisiting, reviewing, learning and assessing these Key Objectives before moving on.

In addition, other changes will need to be made including removing class and whole school assemblies, limiting visits and visitors, the full implication of how we might return will of course depend on the release of new guidance over the coming days and weeks.

Each afternoon, from the first week, lessons would retain coverage of your child’s year group foundation subjects – with obvious adjustments in order to maintain progression within each topic.

An example of our First 2 weeks Recovery Curriculum

Recovery Curriculum Plan will be based on social emotional development alongside revisit, review and assess of the previous curriculum 

By starting with what we can do we can share with you how we hope the school will look and feel in the new academic year. However, all of this is subject to change given any new guidance from the Government.

Please continue to stay safe at home.

Year 6 Parent/Carers

As part of our admission process, we require all parent/carers to complete a Student Admission Data and Consent Pack.

To aid this process we have introduced on online form for you to complete.   An email will be sent to you later today that includes a link to this form.

Can we please ask if you do not receive this email could you please email your details including your child’s name to dpo@ncdat.org.uk.  Alternatively, a paper copy could be posted upon request.

Can we please ask if you can complete and submit this online form asap and no later than Wednesday 15th July 2020.

Please note there is not a facility to save and return to this form and it will take approximately 15-20 minutes to complete.

https://www.consett-academy.org.uk/162/transition-2020

We have now set up ClassDojo to connect with families, share classroom moments, and much more.
Please join to stay connected! Teachers will be able to communicate with you / your child, share work, offer support and praise. In order to access Class Dojo, please follow these simple instructions:

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