Dear Parents and Carers,
I hope everyone remains safe and well as we reach the end of another week in our strange world we call school! We continue to settle into this routine of remote learning and face to face learning and the staff rota which ensures we are covering both styles of learning and minimising the number of staff who need to be in school on any one day.
For the majority of our pupils, learning will continue to take place remotely online at home. Teachers are reporting to me that more children are now accessing all or most of the work being set each day which is good. School will continue to provide online learning for children remaining at home from Year 3 to Year 6 and this will be updated on a regular basis. The staff are working very hard to fine tune and add to the online curriculum, often in their own time and are checking in daily to see which children are logging in and doing the work set. We will hold more sessions next week for teachers to meet together either face to face or remotely to update how it is going, share good practice and ensure good levels of consistency across the year groups and we will continue to do this. If you are having difficulties with the remote learning then please ring the school and ask for me. I will assess what the issue is and then if needed pass you on to our IT Systems Manager Mr Couch who can provide expert technical advice. We will look at each case individually and come up with the best solution we can. This week we have been able to help around 12 families on a range of issues.
School is open to vulnerable children and children of critical workers. The advice remains that if you are a key worker and working from home, then if you can, please keep your child at home. It still remains the case that we have probably now reached a safe limit as to how many pupils we can have in school on any one day, particularly in Year 4 and Year 5, given the measures and restrictions we still have to put in place. As I mentioned above, I need to allow staff to be able to run the remote learning effectively while other staff run the face to face lessons in school. I cannot expect staff to do both at the same time. If you wish to send your child into school from next week onwards, you need to ring and speak to me first so again I can assess the situation and make a decision. I will now have to prioritise cases e.g. where both parents or carers are critical workers over where one parent or carer works and another is at home and I can no longer guarantee places and your child may have to go on a waiting list.
Again I have to say a big thank you so far to parents as you have all been very good and supportive in communicating with the school to check the arrangements and inform us of any changes. This makes it so much easier to manage the current situation.
Key Worker/Vulnerable Group.
For the pupils who are currently in school, these are the arrangements to ensure we can provide as normal an experience as possible for the children. We have organised them into year groups so there are 4 groups for learning rather than the 8 classes. They will not necessarily always be taught by their regular class teacher as some weeks they may be doing the remote learning for the other pupils at home. If your child normally has a school dinner that will still be the case as we will be providing hot meals as normal. The school day will run from 9:00am to 3:00pm (we are not currently running our Breakfast Club or After School Club). The children should be in full school uniform each day; Friday will still be non-uniform but the children do not need to bring £1. We will not be using the sports coaches at this time but still want to do PE in school. I have timetabled myself to do some PE with the groups. Next week the children will have PE on the following days so should come to school in their PE kit on that day: Monday – Year 6, Tuesday – Year 4, Wednesday – Year 5 and Thursday – Year 3.
Covid-19
We ask that you continue to remain vigilant to any symptoms of Coronavirus within members of your household and do not send your child to school if they display any of the symptoms (even if they are key worker or vulnerable pupils). If in doubt, please get yourselves or your child tested. All Waltham Forest residents are able to get tested even if they are not showing any Coronavirus symptoms, as this will reduce the spread of infection to others. If your child or a member of your family tests positive for Coronavirus, you will need to self-isolate as a family for 10 days and inform the school, even if your child is working at home. This is going to be the situation in school until at least 12th February. The government will review this regularly so we will need to wait and see if we are able to fully reopen after half term. The school will continue to follow all aspects of enhanced cleaning and protocols outlined in risk assessments, which will be reviewed. We understand that these are very challenging times for us all, both emotionally and physically. The safety of our school and community remains paramount and we ask for your support at this time. We will continue to be in touch through texts and newsletters to keep you updated of the situation as it progresses and teachers will be in regular contact via the remote learning platforms. We will continue to be here if you should need any support and please do not hesitate to get in touch by phone or email.
Parental Consultations
We were able to hold the consultation meetings this week and I have received positive feedback from the teachers about how useful they were and how nice it was to catch up with parents and pupils, especially those who have not been in school for some time. The teachers were also able to contact a lot parents who had not managed to make an appointment. Again thank you to you the parents for being part of this new way of “meeting” and for sharing important information which will helps us to continue supporting the children both in school and at home during the next few weeks.
Friday Assembly
Remote Learning Awards:
3H – Natan, Emily and Lorenzo
3K – Samanta, Umeed and Alina
4P- Goda, Nicolas and Jayden H
4RC – Nicole, Patryk and David
5L – Anna, Sarah and Simeon
5O – Joella, Lina and Rebecca
6PM – Jacob, Matthew and Destiny
6C – Reinhard, Stephanie and Vanessa
Key Worker/Vulnerable Pupil Awards:
Year 3 – Ameerah, Misbah and Jabari
Year 4 – Adam, Oliwia and Fay-Marie
Year 5 – Not in school this week (back on Monday)
Year 6 – Molly, Kyrell and Neshae
Group of the Week – Year 4 for their outstanding sportsmanship and teamwork in their Mini Handball Tournament in school on Tuesday.
Virtual Assembly
I did my very first virtual assembly this week (it has only taken me 30 years to get round to this way of doing an assembly!). This week’s Friday Assembly has been shared on-line. You can watch it with your children via j2homework. I will be doing one of these every week during the current lockdown period.
Federation
The new federated governing body will continue to hold meetings next week to prepare for the federation between the two schools which is still due to formally take place at Easter. I will of course continue to keep you updated throughout the next few weeks and hope to share some important news very soon.
Covid-19 Case in School
Last week I had to inform everyone of a confirmed case in school and we identified all the pupils and staff who needed to self-isolate and switch to remote learning. I am pleased to say that this period of self-isolation ended today and the staff and pupils can now return to school on Monday if they are feeling well and not showing any symptoms of Covid-19.
120th Birthday of St Joseph’s School
As I have mentioned in previous newsletters, this month and indeed this year are very special for us as 2021 marks the 120th anniversary of the founding of St Joseph’s School way back in January 1901. Next Monday 25th January is the actual “birthday” of the school and in normal times we would be having whole school celebrations across next week to mark this. In previous years such as 2001, 2011 and 2016 we have had the Bishop of Brentwood visiting school to lead a special Mass. Of course we cannot do any of these things at this moment and although we will mark our birthday next week with some small events in school, I am waiting for everyone to return before we organise a true celebration of the last 120 years. I will say more about this next week and share some facts about the history of our school. One interesting thing to note, given our current situation, is that on the first day of school on 25th January 1901, there were 43 pupils in school. On 25th January 2021 we will in all probability have around the same number of children attending!
Meanwhile I continue to wish all our families the very best and hope and pray you all keep safe and look out for each other. As I said last week, although things seem very bleak and dark at this time, together we will get through this and our Patron St Joseph will protect his school and community.
Yours sincerely,
J Alexander (Head teacher)
