Dear Parents
We are already halfway through the half-term and school staff have been so impressed with the engagement and motivation of our children accessing remote learning. A huge thank you to parents for your support with this – we know it is very challenging, as with so many things at the moment, but everyone is doing what they can and together we will pull through. Thank you for all your efforts and perseverance to support your children’s education.
Home Learning
We have had very positive feedback this week, especially about the PE sessions and the structure of the remote school day, with many families especially appreciating the contact with class teachers in the mornings and afternoons. Undoubtedly, there are also still challenges – and some of these are inherent with home learning for Primary-aged children – but we are keen to hear from families how the remote learning is progressing, what is working well and any little tweaks we can make to support families further.
Coffee and Conversation
To that end, the regular “Coffee and Conversation” parent meeting will go ahead as usual on Wednesday 27th January at the earlier time of 8:15am. Apologies for the early start, but this will avoid the clash with the Teams call for the classes at 9:10am and possibly allow more of our working parents to join us for a chat. The focus for the conversation will be 1) Consultation on home learning – what’s working well and further development and 2) Consultation on Pupil Premium Policy and especially any input regarding further support for our Pupil Premium families. Parents are welcome to submit any further general questions (not specific to a child or year group) which could also be discussed. Parents who are not able to attend are welcome to send comments or questions to the office email. Minutes from the meeting will be sent out as usual.
Parent Consultations – YR, Y2 and Y6
The planned parent consultations for YR, Y2 and Y6 will not now go ahead in February, as the children haven’t been in school since the written reports were sent out. If possible, we will rearrange these for a more suitable time once the children are back in school again. As always, if there is anything you wish to discuss with your child’s class teacher or the school SENCO, do get in touch with them via the homelearning email addresses.
Donations
We are delighted to let you know that the new Chromebooks from ACS Cobham were delivered this week and some have already been set up and sent out to families. We are very grateful for this support. Thanks to this donation, there is still some capacity to loan out laptops where needed, so do please contact the school if you are struggling to access the learning appropriately. Thank you also to families who have been in touch to offer their spare equipment – unfortunately, the IT department don’t have capacity to wipe and reset lots of different machines of lots of different models and have asked Xavier schools to stop taking second-hand donations at present.
Our fantastic partnership with Sherwood House is also continuing this term – following our Christmas cards and gift donations to the residents of Sherwood House, we have received from them lovely “care packages” for some of our children, including books, colouring and craft materials. We are so delighted that they are keen to support us in this way and we know the children and families will enjoy the donations.
Collective Worship
Thank you to all the children and families who joined our first Whole School Collective Worship on Teams on Monday morning. We were delighted to have so many of our school community together and will be continuing this initiative. This week, Mrs Emma Sharp will lead the collective worship at 8:45am on Monday morning. Do join us – and if you are able to do so safely, please light a candle together with your children as a symbol of our whole school community being together in spirit and in prayer.
We wish you a very happy weekend and look forward to “seeing” you together with us on Monday morning.
All best wishes
Catherine Burnham
Headteacher
