Home Learning and Covid-19 Update
Dear Parents and Carers,
Hope yourselves and your loved ones are all well and keeping safe at home.
Under usual circumstances, today should have ideally marked the onset of our summer term. There seems to be a tremendous amount of media hype speculating when schools might reopen. I just wanted to assure you that no decision has been made at this point. You will be the first to know when a definite plan of return has been established.I would also like to take this
opportunity to thank you all again for the wonderful efforts and sacrifices you are making to ensure that your children are learning effectively from home. As a mother of two daughters, I am under no illusion that this is not an easy task. Just running a household and ensuring that your children are happy and anxious-free is difficult enough during this extremely worrying climate.
There are two excellent home learning resources which have been released today. The first example is brought to you via www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize, where you can access a series of 20 minute lessons: for all ages, brought to you by experts, teachers and celebrities; straight from your television or any other device. An excellent way to enhance the work already set by our own teachers at Marshfield Primary School.
Another excellent online classroom resource developed by teachers with support from the government is accessible via www.thenational.academy/ . Parents can access 180 lessons a week for every year group from Reception through to year 10, through a new online platform. The enterprise which has been set up by teachers and is funded by the Department of Education, will provide video lessons for children, with each lesson coming with a corresponding quiz and worksheet.
According to the Ambition Institute, each lesson will last one hour and the portal will provide the equivalent of three hours of lessons a day for primary children and four hours for secondary students.
Announcing the plans yesterday, Gavin Williamson said: ‘Tomorrow many children should be going to school for the first time after a two week break. But these are not normal times and we’re asking you to stay at home. Thank you for all the sacrifices that you’ve had to make.’
These resources should really lighten the load for parents and carers. They will also enhance the excellent learning you have already created with your children inspired by Marshfield staff using Twitter and individual class pages.
We are open this week and every other week from hereon (intermittently) with St Matthew’s Church of England Primary School as a ‘Feeder School’ for key workers’ children and other vulnerable groups. It is bizarre opening our doors for (often) less than 20 children and all staff and I are desperate to open as usual with our ‘all systems go’ approach to learning and teaching. I guess recent times have taught us more than anything that we should value our usual way of life.
Looking forward to welcoming you all back into school as soon as safely possible.
Look after yourselves and we are only a phone call away if you need anything.
Kind Regards,
Victoria Hartford