Dear Parents and Carers,
We have reached the final day of our longest school term of the year with a sense of pride and relief. Under the covid guidelines work has been a lot more complex for teachers but we have made every effort to ensure the children continue to have a good, worthwhile and safe experience. Their joy when they returned to school and their eagerness and happiness as they come into school every day is testament to this.
We sincerely thank our responsible parents who have provided clean mouth masks, clean clothes daily and monitored their children’s health over this period ensuring our student population has remained covid free all term. I know many of you cancelled travel plans when you realised the potential impact of your trip not only on your families’ health but also on the children’s education.
Since half term we have continued to have our playground and lunchroom bubbles in place, seating plans on the buses and extensive cleaning routines. We have also had some great learning opportunities and wonderful events. After two or three weeks back in the school routine most of the children leapt forward in their learning.
Some of the projects I have seen have been:-
- Students creating their own news reports on natural disasters
- Exploring Shakespeare and then creating their own plays
- Making their own airport in the classroom and acting out all of the roles
- Using materials for their different properties to make specific objects
- Exploring perimeter and area using 1cm blocks
- Creating their own Superhero models and racing them
- Writing letters to war veterans
- Designing their own experiments on ‘Forces’
- Using the game Battleships to learn co-ordinates
- Acting out the Earth’s trajectory
- Investigating celebrations
- Exploring 2D and 3D shapes
- Creating their own Biome documentary
- Playing an escape room game relating to climate issues.
- Learning how to make sandwiches
- Exploring light sources in the dark.
These are just a few of the exciting ways our children have been learning in their classrooms recently from the Early Years to Class 5. And of course the additional activities they undertake with our specialists extend and enhance our curriculum.
In Primary some of our celebrations had to be cancelled as the government ruled learning should be off site for an additional week. We had to skip the full Diwali celebration and the Remembrance assembly. The students had worked hard to prepare for these. We were thankful to hold the Christmas Card Competition, Sinterklaas event, the Gingerbread House competition, the virtual Christmas Concert and the class parties over these last two weeks. It would be a shame to miss out on the Christmas atmosphere. Children have decorated their classes, made Christmas cards and sung Christmas songs. It has been very uplifting.
We look forward to seeing the children back in school on the 4th January. Please remember that if it has been necessary for you to travel, the children must have a weeks quarantine before they come back to school, so we are recommending that you are back in the country a week before school starts.
I wish you all a healthy and happy holiday and look forward to seeing our students again on the 4th.
Very best wishes,
Mrs Short
Head of Primary
Safeguarding Officer