St Luke's C of E Primary School, Glossop

St Luke’s CE Primary School

Newsletter 25.6.2020

Dear Parents,

What a difference in the weather! From wet and soggy to hot, hot, hot. It has been lovely to welcome more children into school this week. Their excited but slightly nervous faces relaxing across the day to now just being pleased to be here. I know they are tired not only is it hot but they are not used to being at school. It is like September only more so. If you remember how tired they are that first week and multiply it up. You can tell how much they are enjoying being back because they are not moaning about being tired. If your child is in the second group of children coming back on 6th July we cannot wait to see you.

The children are all working hard, learning lots both inside and out. We have had botany, deserted islands, Elmer, Maths and English. I have walked the plank and been shown how to funnel rainwater using leaves. All the classes are loving our pond. Thank you so much to Annie’s parents for all their help in creating it. We now have pond skaters, a newt, frogs, beetles, water boatmen and aquatic plants and I have been told pond guardians. You may be asking where the pond is well ………..it is between the top field and the railway fence. We have a small secret garden there behind a locked gate so the perfect space to safely have a pond.

I know you are all wondering what the arrangements are for September. I am afraid I still cannot tell you the DFE has said they will give us information before the end of term but have not said when before the end of term so it may be very late. As soon as I have received the information and had chance to plan for September I will let you know what the plan is.

Stay happy and healthy

Alice Littlehailes

St Luke’s CE Primary School Newsletter

18.6.2020

Dear Parents,

This will be a short newsletter as you have had lots of information from me this week and probably don’t want any more!

We have had another lovely week in school with lots of fun and learning going on.

I am so pleased that we will get to see most of the children in school over the next 4 weeks. I have had a number of queries about things such as school shoes. I know lots of children have grown out of shoes over the lock down please do not try to buy new ones any shoes they have that fit are fine. This also applies to other items of school uniform. The children are enjoying being back in uniform because it signals to them that life is getting slightly back to normal, but if they have grown out of an item send them in in something as close to uniform as possible.

If your child is feeling a little uneasy about what school will be like remember there is a link on the blogs to a video where I explain a bit about it.

Please can you check your dinner money account on School Money as some of you still owe money from before the lockdown.

Stay happy and healthy

Alice Littlehailes

St Luke’s CE Primary School Newsletter

11.6.2020

Dear Parents,

I know you will have been disappointed to hear that whilst the Government’s hope is that more primary school children can come back to school before the summer holiday they are no longer expecting all schools to be able to do this. It is a real challenge to schools to get all the children in whilst following the guidelines. The children need to be in pods of no more than 15 children and be 2m apart. This means each class needs to be split into 2 and have a large enough space to work in. In order to make this happen schools would need to have twice as much space as normal. We are lucky that we have some spare capacity but not enough to accommodate the whole school. We know how important it is to your children to get back into school emotionally as well as academically and we will do everything we can to help make this happen. In order to help us plan for what might be possible it would be really helpful if the parents of children in Y2,3,4 & 5 could indicate on a text survey if you might be interested if we were able to offer a place for at least part of the time. This does not mean they would be offered a place or that they would have to take up any offer just an indication to help with planning. Please reply to the text by 1pm on Friday.

I promised you an update on how things are going in school for the children who have come back so here it is. I have been really pleased, all the planning the staff did before the children came in has paid off. The points when there are more people on site, drop off and pick up times, are going really smoothly thanks to the parents who are sticking to the new rules even when they feel a little daft because they appear to be the only person other than me there. We all would have liked it to be a bit drier but you can’t have everything! In the class pods the children are enjoying their learning. They are trying really hard to stay 2m apart, the older they are the easier they are finding this but they are all doing well at it. Lunchtime is taking longer it is spread over 2 hours, each child has an hour but because we are staggering it more time is needed. As the number of children we have changes we are making adjustments to timings to ensure the children can stay 2m apart but the system seems to be working. The parents of the children who are in are reporting that they are coming home happy but tired – sounds like a win to me. We are constantly reviewing what we are doing in the light of what is happening outside school and within school. We get information from the DFE, from Derbyshire County Council and from health and use this information to inform our decisions. I had a conversation with our school’s senior advisor yesterday who felt confident we were doing the right thing for our children, which may of course not be the right thing for other children at schools.

We have been asked about school reports. We are in the process of writing reports on your children but they will be brief this year as we have not seen most of the children for 3 months. It is not possible for us to have face to face meetings about the reports but staff will continue to be available for telephone conversations should you need them.

Please can you check your dinner money account on School Money as some of you still owe money from before the lockdown.

Stay happy and healthy

Alice Littlehailes

St Luke’s CE Primary School Newsletter

4.6.2020

Dear Parents,

Well here we are in June and the weather has reverted to typical summer weather. Despite this the children in school have been making great use of the outside space. They have been exploring the pond – we now have froglets as well as a newt, discovering fairy homes, making their own habitats, planting beans and setting themselves athletic challenges.

It has been lovely to have more children in school. Everything is running smoothly. The one-way system is working well at drop off and pick up time. Even more importantly we have happy relaxed children in school enjoying what they are doing.

I wanted to say a huge thank you to all of you for the kindness you have shown each other through this period. I have been told of some school communities where people have been accusing other parents of being bad parents for making a different decision to the one they personally made about sending their child back, whether that be to send their child to school or to keep them at home. I have had no reports of such behaviour here. I believe you have been treating each other with respect and understanding. I am very proud to be part of a community which can support others when they make a different choice from the one you would make. You have all been showing the children how to live our school text The Prayer of St Francis:

Oh Master, grant that I may never seek So much to be consoled as to console To be understood as to understand To be loved as to love with all my soul

I know a number of you who have children eligible to be at school because you are a key worker, they are in Reception, Year 1, Year 6 or they have an EHCP delayed sending them back to school because you have been unsure about how it would work. You can change this decision at any point just let us know that you are now ready to send your child back in. If you would like to talk through any concerns you have you can phone school for a chat.

Stay happy and healthy

Alice Littlehailes