Keep up to date with all the news happening in school at the moment.
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Dear Parents and Carers,
Thank you!
As always, you, our fantastic Fordley Family, utterly blow us away with how brilliantly you have all adapted to this third lockdown and how well you are supporting your child with their learning. I have no doubt on many days you don’t feel it. I can imagine there are times when you feel frustrated, overwhelmed and utterly fed up of the current situation. Please remember that the most important thing is that your child is safe and loved; and your children are definitely that.
When looking at Tapestry and Seesaw, I am so proud to see all of the learning your children are sharing every single day and that is also thanks to you. I am incredibly happy to be able to continue to share Stars of the Week for home learning, as well as in school, as the effort the children are putting in needs to be acknowledged (different children are chosen each week).
Your child’s teachers are also buzzing about the learning they are seeing, and enjoy commenting on your child’s work as well as getting comments back from your child. They are also enjoying making regular phone calls to you and your child at home to see how things are going, and offer support where they can. Please remember to email office@fordleyprimary.org.uk or ring 2502207 and your child’s teacher (or a teacher on home learning duty) will be more than happy to ring you back. As I’ve said before, sometimes it’s just good to offload on one of us and it might help you, as a parent, feel a bit less stressed!
As a school we have to provide the amount of learning stated by the DFE, and it will feel, on some days, that we are throwing a mountain of learning at you. We do understand this and all we ask is that your child tries to do as much as they can. If, on some days, they only manage to do a couple of the lessons, that is okay. If you need to leave the learning and go for a walk, or do something different for a little while – that is okay too. We are tracking the home learning, ringing where there isn’t much learning shared but this is simply to see how we can support you at home. It will also help us to understand which children might need a bit more of a boost from us at school when we can finally reopen.
Finally, and most importantly, we very much miss your child in our school and you and your family on our site. We cannot wait until we can have our full Fordley Family back, safely, and to be able to leave COVID-19 behind as a memory and part of history.
Stay strong and stay safe. We are with you and we are here if we can help with anything.
Kindest regards
Claire Withers
Headteacher
From this week we will be offering twice weekly rapid COVID-19 tests to all of our schools staff. This will enable us to quickly identify where there are positive cases of COVID-19 in our staff team, particularly when they have no symptoms (asymptomatic).
As before, if we have a positive case within school we would have to close the bubble in which the child or staff member works. This is for the safety of all and to prevent wider transmission of the virus.
I ask, then, that you check our website, Facebook and Seesaw on a Sunday evening (after 8pm) and Wednesday evening (after 8pm) as we will announce any bubble closures on there as well as sending emails to individual families (and ringing where possible).
By joining this regular testing regime, it will help identify positive cases more swiftly and help to keep our staff, children and families as safe as possible.
If you have any questions regarding this, please email office@fordleyprimary.org.uk
Kind regards
Claire Withers
Headteacher
Dear Parents and Carers of children in Nursery and Fordley Flyers,
We hope you are all safe and well, and I know Mrs McArdle has enjoyed seeing your learning on Tapestry. I will be logging on to say hi too and to see how you are all getting on.
The current government guidance is clear that:
'parents and carers … should keep their children at home if they can'
This is because minimising numbers attending school (including the number of adults and other children) is about the reduction of the overall number of contacts in the community and, given the crisis situation in the country, this is essential. I thank you wholeheartedly for doing just this as it contributes to keeping our families, children, staff and community as safe as it can be.
We currently have children of critical workers and vulnerable children in Nursery and places for other Nursery children should a parent or carer wish for their child to attend. In light of changing guidance around school nurseries, we are reviewing what we are able to offer. This might not be the normal morning or afternoon place (or the same room) you may have had last term due to the importance of keeping all children, the Nursery staff and families safe at all times. In order to help us to ensure that what we offer meets the needs of the families of Nursery children, we are asking that you let us know whether you would, at the current time, want your child to return to Nursery should more places become available or whether, due to safety concerns relating to the pandemic, you would prefer for your child to remain at home.
Should you wish for your child to remain at home during the current lockdown it would in no way affect their entitlement to a place in the longer term and, should you change your mind, we would try to accommodate your child in Nursery should places be available. Once lockdown restrictions have been removed, your child will automatically return to their original session (the one they had before Christmas).
If you would like to request a place, please email office@fordleyprimary.org.uk
We will then contact you with information about your child’s place, where it will be and when they can return.
We will continue to share learning and stories on Tapestry, we will continue to check in with you to make sure you are all safe and we are always here for help and advice.
Kind regards
Mrs C.L. Withers
Headteacher
If you are trying to access Tapestry this morning, there is a nationwide issue with both this and Google Classroom today. Please do not worry if you are not able to login, as school staff are having the same issue.
We hope this will be resolved very quickly.
Dear Parents and Carers,
You may have heard that the governments have put in place a scheme which temporarily increases data allowances for mobile phone users on certain networks. The aim of this scheme is to support children to access remote education online if they are home learning through their network provider.
As a school, we have to request mobile data increases for children on behalf of parents and carers – it is not something that parents or carers can do themselves. The government are requiring schools to coordinate this scheme.
We can request data increases for children who
Based on the latest guidance I have, children may be able to benefit from this scheme if your provider is one of the following:
If you would like to request extra mobile data, please could you email me the following information and we will add you to our spreadsheet.
For each request, I need to know
As you will appreciate, this will take a little time for school to coordinate and upload the spreadsheet of requests to the government.
In order to help us do this as quickly as we can, please can I ask that you email the school office@fordleyprimary.org.uk with your request by lunchtime tomorrow (Friday 8th January). Please ensure you are providing all of the detail I need above in red on your email.
Best wishes and stay safe.
Mrs C.L. Withers
Headteacher
Dear Parent/Carer,
Even though your child is not physically in our building, we want to be able to keep in contact with them daily, provide learning similar to what is going on in school, and be able to give them daily feedback on the learning that they are doing at home. The work we are setting is a mix of new learning and recapping learning they will already have been taught. This is to try and prevent children losing any more precious learning time than they have already since the first lockdown last March.
We know that learning at home is far harder than learning in school. We also know that trying to get your children to learn at home can be a huge challenge! Which is why they need to know we are checking in on them, communicating with them and supporting their learning every day.
Government Expectation of Schools
We don’t need the government to tell us what we already know is essential – that all children have access to learning, whether they are at home or at school. Just like you, we want the best for our amazing Fordley children. However the government are clear that they expect a minimum of 3 hours of learning set per day for primary school children.
Is there a daily timetable?
In school we are able to set, and stick to, a timetable because that’s our job. However we know that home learning may need to fit around shared devices, parents/carers working from home, managing babies and very young children, stroppy teenagers and so much more.
So – we are setting the following activities, daily, to fit flexibly around your own home circumstances (you don’t have to do them at set times):
It is our responsibility to set this learning every day and we ask that children engage with it as much as possible. We utterly understand that some days may be easier than others, and some days your child might struggle a bit more. We will be ringing regularly and can provide support, advice or just give you the chance to let off steam!
How will my child access the learning?
By now most of the children have accessed some of the learning we have already set this week (I know because I get to check in and comment too!)
There is a teacher allocated every day to setting, uploading and feedback on that day’s work for the year group.
For Tapestry and Seesaw, children can do the work they see on the screen on paper and this can be photographed and uploaded to the site. This works really well for children who do not like writing or tapping on a device screen.
Why does my child have to use Seesaw (Y1-Y6)?
We would actively encourage all children in Y1-Y6 to use the learning set on Seesaw because:
What if my child likes to do their work on paper?
We have exercise books and pencils available at school from tomorrow for you to come and collect (Reception to Y6). Children can do their work on paper and just use their device as the teaching screen. You do not need to print any worksheets – children just need to be able to see them on the screen.
If you take a photo and upload it to Seesaw, their teacher will give feedback to your child on how well they have done.
We have difficulties accessing Seesaw because we have no devices/internet
What if I would still rather have a paper pack for my child?
If you choose a paper pack then your child will not be able to access teaching by their teacher. They also will not get any direct feedback on their learning. We would also have to ask you to come and collect new learning every day as it would need to be in line with what we are teaching in school and on Seesaw. Our teachers do not upload learning a week in advance because they will tweak learning for the following day if they can see children aren’t understanding it (just like we do in school normally).
What is available if my child has additional needs?
If your child has an EHCP (Education Health and Care Plan) we allocated you a place in school. If you chose to keep your child at home we have specific learning for them, both on Tapestry and through paper based intervention programmes e.g. motor skills, dyslexia programmes. However, we are at the other end of the phone if you need any further advice or support with this.
How do I get new logins for Seesaw, Times Tables Rockstars, Spelling Shed or Tapestry?
Sorry for the length of this information but I hope it answers most of your questions and explains why we are delivering remote learning in this way.
If you have any queries, please email office@fordleyprimary.org.uk and we will sort them out for you.
Kind regards
Mrs C.L. Withers
Headteacher
Free School Meal Arrangements
Please respond to the email you will receive from school about this if we know you are eligible.
Current guidance from the Government around benefit related Free School Meals is:
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Free school meal provision Schools should also continue to provide free school meals or food parcels for pupils who are eligible for benefits related free school meals who are not attending school.
Guidance on free school meals has been produced by the Lead Association for Catering in Education, Public Health England and the Department for Education. It sets out some general principles for putting together a food parcel which will allow parents and carers to prepare simple and healthy lunches for their children at home across the week. Food parcels must be distributed in line with guidance on social distancing at all times. During the national lockdown, families can continue collecting parcels where appropriate social distancing measures are in place. |
Will I receive a voucher?
At this time there are no government plans to restart the voucher scheme. The voucher you received before Christmas was funded by North Tyneside Council. If this changes, we will be in touch with you directly.
What does that mean for my child?
We will receive an allocated bag of shopping for every child we have on our free school meals list (everyone who was entitled to the Winter Shopping Voucher we set up before Christmas).
This bag will include pasta, tuna, cheese, milk, eggs, bread and a range of fruit and vegetables. The reason behind this is that a weekly food bag was more useful for families than a daily limited choice sandwich. The bags are similar to the ones some families may have received last term if their year group or class were isolating.
When will we get this bag of food?
We hope to find out today which will be the day for our delivery of food bags from Catering Services. We have asked that there is a delivery this week so that families are not left to struggle.
How will I receive my bag/s of food?
We will try our best to deliver all bags on the day they arrive in school (once we have a regular set day) but we ask that you understand we will have 102 bags to deliver whilst continuing to have over 100 children in school. If you are able to come and collect, we would be incredibly grateful.
What if I do not need the bag of shopping?
Please let us know and we will ask Catering Services to reduce their delivery numbers to us. The last thing we want is to waste food that could go to another family.
What if I have more than 1 child entitled to free school meals?
You are entitled to a bag per child who is eligible e.g. 3 children in a family who are registered for benefits related free school meals would equal 3 bags per week.
What do I do if I think I might be eligible for free school meals but I haven’t applied?
Follow this link to apply online: https://my.northtyneside.gov.uk/category/238/free-school-meals
Or ring (0191) 643 2288 to apply over the phone.
If you have any urgent questions around this, please ring school and we will help you.
Kind regards
Mrs C.L. Withers
Headteacher
Now that we have sorted, set up and are running successfully our key worker and vulnerable children provision we can focus on the rest of our lovely Fordley Family who we aren’t getting to see every day.
You will receive updates shortly about:
- the offer for benefits related free school meals
- home learning (online and on paper)
- device and internet access support
We will get this information out to you today.
Please read carefully in case there is anything you need to ask or respond to.
Thank you for your patience.
KEY WORKER AND VULNERABLE CHILD PLACE
Deadline for requesting a place is 4pm today. Mr Maule, Mrs Pringle and Mrs Watson are now ringing those who have emailed to request a place and those who have an EHCP or a Social Worker. Mrs Withers will email with information those families need.
No places will be allocated if you do not email office@fordleyprimary.org.uk by 4pm
Dear Parents/Carers,
You will be aware that the Prime Minister and Education Secretary announced tonight at 8pm that schools will be closed from tomorrow for MOST children. Schools are to remain open for children whose parents are identified as ‘key workers’.
At this time we do not have up to date guidance from the government about who is classed as a ‘Key Worker’ but based on the guidance given to London schools this covers:
This includes, but is not limited to, doctors, nurses, midwives, paramedics, social workers, care workers, and other frontline health and social care staff including volunteers; the support and specialist staff required to maintain the UK’s health and social care sector; those working as part of the health and social care supply chain, including producers and distributors of medicines and medical and personal protective equipment.
This includes:
This includes:
This only includes those administrative occupations essential to the effective delivery of:
This includes those involved in food:
This includes:
those maintaining border security, prison and probation staff and other national security roles, including those overseas
This includes those who will keep the air, water, road and rail passenger and freight transport modes operating during the coronavirus (COVID-19) response and EU transition, including those working on transport systems through which supply chains pass and those constructing or supporting the operation of critical transport and border infrastructure through which supply chains pass.
This includes:
While we wait to hear the exact identification of roles, we would like to take a proactive approach and begin to identify those pupils whose parents are classed as ‘key workers’ and are likely to need to continue attending school. If you believe you fall into one of these groups please send an email to office@fordleyprimary.org.uk and Mr Maule, Mrs Watson, Mrs Pringle or myself will be in touch tomorrow.
We will need proof of key worker status from your employer before we can allocate a place for your child.
Vulnerable Children
If your family has a social worker, we will contact you directly tomorrow.
If your child has an Education, Health and Care Plan, we contact you directly tomorrow.
With the deepest regret, only those children that fall into the categories identified by the government will be able to attend school.
We ask for your understanding and consideration of this. There is no school choice around this, it is a directive from the government which we have to follow.
We will continue to update parents and carers via our website, facebook and Seesaw.
This is understandably going to cause many anxieties for families, and we hope that we will be able to continue to support you wherever possible. We will continue to keep you informed with any new information as we receive it, in what are, again, incredibly difficult and uncertain times.
Kind regards
Mrs C.L. Withers
Headteacher