Parent Zoom Q and A – Whole School Restart
Wednesday 3rd March at 8:15am
10 parents attended and three further parents submitted questions.
Summary of Meeting:
Whole School Restart:
1) Do children have to bring their homeschool work back to school on Monday?
Yes – please could children bring back to school any books they have been working in and any equipment they have borrowed from school. This includes whiteboard pens and whiteboards, reading books and laptops where applicable.
Children don’t need to bring back any work which has already been marked – marking will have been done on Teams Assignments. If there is a specific piece of work which the child is very proud of – artwork etc – they may bring it in to show the teacher / class if they would like to.
2) Please can you remind us of the exact start and end times for each year group.
The timings are staggered for each year group and we will use the separate entrances for drop off as before. Pick up will be the loop around the whole school at the staggered times as previously. The timings for each year group are:
Y6-Y4
Y6 – Arrive 8:40am; Leave 3:10pm
Y5 – Arrive 8:45am; Leave 3:15pm
Y4 – Arrive 8:50am; Leave 3:20pm
Y4 – Y6 will enter on foot via the staff car park exit gate and walk to the KS2 playground and then to their own classroom (outside doors). Parents should not enter the site but drop off at the gate or further away from school if your child is ready and able to walk down Arch Road independently.
YR-Y3
Y2 – Arrive 8:40am; Leave 3:10pm
Y1 – Arrive 8:45am; Leave 3:15pm
Y3 – Arrive 8:50am; Leave 3:20pm
YR – Arrive 8.55 am; Leave 3.00 pm
YR-Y3 will enter on foot via the playground pedestrian gate and walk to the KS1 playground and then to their own classroom (outside doors – Topaz to enter via KS1 playground entrance). Parents for YR-Y3 to drop at the top end of playground and exit via one-way system through the staff car park entrance gate.
Drop off and pickup for siblings
Siblings including reception children should be dropped at the earliest time and collected at the earliest time for their family.
3) What about uniform – what should they wear if the uniform doesn’t fit?
Ideally, please wear winter uniform and smart black school shoes as normally expected at this time of year. If this isn’t possible, it is fine to wear summer uniform for the coming 4 weeks until the Easter holidays. Some uniform items can be purchased online (AlleyKatz / M & S etc). We have to be pragmatic and do what we can until the shops open properly again.
School shoes are available online or from shops which are open like Marks & Spencer, Tesco etc. If you can’t get what you need for your child at the moment, please send them in other dark-coloured shoes if possible, or dark coloured trainers if no other shoes. Neon trainers etc are a last resort if no other options which fit!
Please don’t worry about this! Uniform is important – it is part of the children’s routines and also supports our messages of community and high expectations – but we can all only do what we can at this time! We are just looking forward to seeing the children again, whatever they’re wearing!
4) Will the children be having COVID tests in school?
No. Primary children are not being tested in school. Our staff all have access to COVID tests and we are testing twice weekly on Sunday and Wednesday evenings.
Families are now being given access to COVID test packs, if your family would like to participate in the asymptomatic testing routine. Hersham Village Hall is the closest pick up point to collect a test pack, or you can also book online to have a lateral flow test at a test centre locally.
Curriculum / Assessment:
1) What specifically is being done to help children catch up on lost playtime and socialising with peers from lockdown? I’m really keen that my child’s emotional wellbeing in this regard is nurtured, as well as her coming back to speed with formal learning.
Our highest priority for the children is to give them lots of opportunities for social interaction when they come back. During home learning, they have been able to keep up with the curriculum – most are probably roughly where they should be for this time of year in Maths and English. What we haven’t been able to do is give them opportunities to play and socialise together remotely, so that is the priority. School staff are thinking of the restart as a new September – it is a time to get to know all about the children’s experiences, to embed routines and structures and to have chance to reconnect socially and emotionally. There will be built in opportunities to play and also to do the hands-on, collaborative and experiential learning which has been so difficult to achieve via screens!
2) I would love forest school not to be de-prioritise over the coming term – is there any possibility of changing this?
Sorry, this may have been a miscommunication on my part. We HAVE cancelled the whole and part day sessions for Forest School, but Mrs Coleman (our Forest School teacher) is still working and will be providing groups of children with opportunities to spend time in nature. There are only 3 Forest School Fridays before the end of term and we didn’t want to limit the Forest School experience to only three classes. It seemed fairer to give every class a little bit of time. But certainly Forest School isn’t “deprioritised.” – we know that spending time in the outdoors on hands on activities is important for all of our children’s wellbeing.
3) Will Phonics testing be cancelled for Year 1?
All national testing has been cancelled by the Government. All year groups will have internal assessment rather than the usual forms of national testing and results will be shared with parents in the Summer Reports as usual.
Specific to Year 1, our school Phonics results are typically very high – they were in the top 5% in the country in the last full national tests (and our in-school testing for Year 2 in November was a higher % again, despite the national lockdown!). Our children are therefore always very well prepared for the Phonics screening. When we assessed Year 1 in the Autumn Term, many of the children had already met the threshold for the Summer phonics screening, so there is no cause for alarm. We will continue to work hard to ensure that all of our children reach their potential in the screening test.
4) Will Year 1 get a report at the end of the term or the end of the year?
All children will get a written report at the end of the Summer Term. In addition, Year R and Year 2 and Year 6 parents, who have missed a Parent Consultation due to lockdown, will be able to meet with teachers on School Cloud at the beginning of the Summer Term, to understand their children’s next steps as they prepare to transition to the next Key Stage.
5) I’m worried that my children might have some gaps in their learning because I was trying to juggle work and managing two children and their lessons. What will you do about that?
Remember that most families will have been in a similar position with this. It has been a difficult juggling act for parents trying to manage multiple needs while also attending to their own work responsibilities. Many of our teachers have themselves been in this position and understand only too well how difficult that is! Please don’t worry about it – this is what we are expecting to see for most children!
The last lockdown and subsequent assessments showed us that our children at Cardinal Newman – in our specific context – are generally not behind where they would normally be academically, due to the quality of the home learning and the commitment of our parent community to support their children. We expect the same to be true this time, although it is difficult to be sure about that until we have all the children back in school.
Our teachers are not planning to repeat work which has already been delivered, but we will be particularly vigilant to any gaps in knowledge or misconceptions which may have crept in. Once the children have settled back in, there will be ongoing assessment to identify and address any particular learning gaps either for individuals or whole cohorts.
The meeting ended with parents thanking the school for the quality of the home learning and the dedicated support their children have received while they have been at home. Mrs Burnham thanked parents for their ongoing support for the school and the children.
Stop Press:
An important question reached me by email after the meeting and it would be useful to share the response here:
What contingency plans does the school have in place if there should be another lockdown? How much notice would parents get if there is a bubble closure or some children have to be sent home?
Of course, we are all hoping that there will be no further disruption to our children’s education. The contingency plans for another full lockdown (God forbid!) would be the same as we have had this time, with the children switching to learning on Teams from home.
A more likely scenario is for there to be a bubble closure in a class or year group. At Cardinal Newman, we have so far only had this issue twice – once with the Year 5 bubble and once with the Year 1 lockdown bubble. However, other schools, including Salesian and Walton Oak, have been closed temporarily due to COVID at points during the last year and some other Primary schools locally have had far more bubble closure problems. We cannot and should not assume it will not happen here!
If a bubble is sent home, we will try, where possible, to revert to Teams learning for the whole year group from home. Where it is a staff member who has tested positive, this may not be possible and it might instead be necessary to set paper-based “bubble closure” work for the ten day duration of the closure. Similarly, where it is an individual child who is isolating, the work set will be paper-based and making use of online resources.
In order to prevent this, families can support the school with the following measures:
- Please don’t send your child into school if they are unwell. In young children, symptoms of COVID have included headaches, sickness, runny nose and sore throat, as well as the more typical persistent cough, high fever and loss of smell/taste. If you are in any doubt, please don’t bring your child into school and do take them for a COVID test.
- At pick up and drop off, please only send one adult with your child and do keep your distance from others. We know it is exciting to be back together with others after such a long time, but social distancing rules are still in place and it is important that we are all considerate to others’ needs as well as our own.
- If you need to speak to a school adult, please make contact via email or phone – don’t approach school staff for face to face conversations please.
- Only send your child into school with the things they really need for the day – limit other items transferring between home and school where possible please.
These measures are to help prevent transmission, thereby keeping everyone safe and keeping the school open. Let’s work together on this one!
Thank you!
Catherine Burnham
