This first week of closure has been strange in different ways for everyone and it is difficult for us all to adapt let alone for our children. Like yourselves, we have muddled through it all and made it to Friday last week running a skeleton staff and accepting the children of essential key workers. I thank those of you who managed to make alternate arrangements for your children and likewise applaud all of you attempting to support your children with home learning. The internet is full of very amusing videos of parents having fun trying to keep their little ones entertained while everyone goes stir crazy and also those less pleased at having such expansive amounts of work available to them.
I remind you that our home learning is there to support you, not to be a burden and I have deliberately not set timetables for you to follow at home as I’m sure you can organise your own lives well enough on your own, after all, you do it every weekend and holiday. You should by now be aware of our methods of home school communication as outlined on our Home Learning Website.
You will also be aware from reading the content on the site that we will be trying to contact you once a week just to check in and see if there is anything we can do to support you as parents. In addition to this, we want to touch base with the children and help give them just a little normality in these difficult times. This is intended to be supportive and positive and is not questioning your parenting skills or checking up on you. You might well see a “caller ID withheld” appear on your screen and while I understand you might well be ignoring calls like this, it might be a call from school. Many of us are having to work remotely and making these calls from private lines hence why the ID needs to be hidden for obvious reasons. Please pick up if you can as one teacher made their way through the entire class list and only had a couple of people answer last Friday.
I hope that by the end of the Easter holiday we will be in a better position to predict when more normal service might resume but of course there are no guarantees. During the holiday period we will be staffing school as we have this last week to allow those essential workers to keep doing their amazing work to keep us all safe. This will be again on a rota basis and will be for the same children we are currently providing for.
Schools stocks of food are depleting as we move forward and we might not be in a position to offer a school meal for much longer but we will continue until supplies are exhausted. For the small minority that have been collecting a free school meal from the office last week, our provision in future is moving over to a voucher system. Contact school if you require a voucher and we will get this out to you.
Finally, I’d just like to take a moment to reflect on last week… It was amazing to hear so many people out clapping for the NHS on Thursday night and I’m sure you will all join me in giving out heartfelt thanks not only to those NHS workers but also to everyone who is putting themselves at risk to keep our society functioning in these difficult times. It has also been lovely to hear stories of kindness and compassion within communities where the Elderly and most vulnerable are being cared for by those around them.
Wishing you all the very best of health and happiness this week,
Kind regards