Dear Parents and Carers,
I hope everyone remains safe and well as we reach the end of another week both in school and at home. 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. 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 Year 3 teachers are going to trial “live” lessons with their pupils next Tuesday to see what works best and they will look to share this with other staff. Year 3 parents will already have received a separate newsletter with the details of how to access these lessons next Tuesday. We have held more sessions this 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 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 5 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 and Year 3 (different times) and Wednesday – Year 5.
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 now going to be the situation in school until at least 8th March, following the government announcement last week. 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.
Friday Assembly
Remote Learning Awards:
3H – Ameerah, Alexandra and Beatrice
3K – Ayrin, Misbah and Emily
4P – Amelia, Faith and Jaiden S
4RC – Dominik, Nicole and David
5L – Lucas, Letoya and Julia
5O – Antonio, Lina and Tyron
6PM – Travon, Ella and Janet
6C – Keziah, Kelsie and Reinhard
Key Worker/Vulnerable Pupil Awards:
Year 3 – Not in school this week (back on 8th February)
Year 4 – Etinosa, Henrikh and Jack
Year 5 – Samuel, Ronan and Erel
Year 6 – Janae, Kristen and Olivier
Group of the Week – Year 4 for their commitment to learning this week, the great work they have been doing in class plus a very competitive Handball Tournament this week!
Virtual Assembly
I did my very second virtual assembly last week and hopefully most of you were able to catch it at some point. Thank you again for the positive feedback which has come in since last Friday. This week’s Friday Assembly has also been shared on-line and went “live” from Friday morning via j2homework. The theme this week was the month of February and the Feast of Candlemas which traditionally comes 40 days after Christmas itself and recalls when Mary and Joseph took the infant Jesus to the Temple. I will be doing one of these every week during the current lockdown period.
Federation
The new federated governing body has held more meetings this 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 next week.
Covid-19 Case in School
Our Year 3 group will be able to return to school next Monday 8th February which is great. We have really missed them as they fill the school with their enthusiasm for learning and playing. I truly hope we don’t have to isolate any more of our groups and we can at least get to half term next Friday with all four groups in school.
Chinese New Year
The infant school has kindly shared a link to this free dance workshop that children can take part in at home and school to celebrate Chinese New Year next week on 12th February. See the details below on how to access the workshop.
To access the dance workshop (available from 8th to 15th February) parents need to log onto:
https://www.dancedays.co.uk/dance-videos/chinese- dance?utm_source=DDTV&utm_medium=StJosephsCatholicInfantSchool
Password – CNY2021(the password is case sensitive)
Leyton Orient
Leyton Orient Trust is working in partnership with the English Football League Trust to deliver a national initiative called the “Joy of Moving Winter Games”. Our school could be part of one of the biggest ever national initiatives of its kind this February. The Joy of Moving Winter Games is a pack of fun activities designed to suit the current lockdown restrictions. This will be available from next week in a digital format to send to parents by email and use in school as well.
As I mentioned last week, the government has announced 8th March as the earliest that schools could reopen, so let’s hope that things improve over the next few weeks and we can have everyone back on 8th March or as soon after that as possible. Of course nothing is certain in the world at the moment and a lot of things have to be in place, but it is good to have a possible restart date to work towards. I will of course keep you updated each week. Hopefully by the middle of February around the half term break, we should know more about if and when schools may be able to reopen.
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.
Yours sincerely,
J Alexander (Head teacher)
