Latest News
Keep up to date with all the latest news happening in school at the moment.
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Lockdown School Updates – Friday 29th January
Fri 29 Jan 2021Wellbeing Week
Next week is well-being week and given the current situation we think now more than ever it is so important to ensure we are taking care of ourselves. Teachers will be planning activities around this theme and you are welcome to do more things that support your wellbeing at home too!
We are looking forward to talking about this more and hearing what you have done to support your wellbeing in next week’s ‘Hot Chocolate Friday’ and Huge St Saviour’s Assembly.
Home Learning
As you are aware, we have been reflecting on Home Learning, listening to feedback and making changes to best meet the needs of the children working at home. We are now at a point where we want to embed our approaches and give stability to families and teachers.
This week we published our Home Learning FAQs that can be found here.
We will continue to reflect and adapt but, at this stage, any changes will be tweaks and fine tuning. Any necessary large-scale changes, within our control, will be implemented over a longer period of time.
We hope this approach gives teachers and families a chance to establish effective and sustainable routines.
Absence from live lessons and home learning
We will be checking in with families who are not engaging with home learning, as we want to make sure you are safe and offer support as necessary.
Sometimes children will be absent from home learning just as they are absent from normal school. For example, a child may be ill or have a doctor’s appointment. Please can we ask families to email the appropriate school office (JuniorEnquiries@stsaviours.bwmat.org or InfantEnquiries@stsaviours.bwmat.org) if your child will be absent from Home Learning. Currently, some parents are using Teams chat to share absence with teachers. This is not a private platform; please avoid using chat for this reason.
Teams Chat at the Junior School
Teams chat between the children and teachers is a really useful tool to discuss learning and we encourage children to use it for this reason.
However, in a minority of cases, children are spamming the chat channels and using them to share non-school related material. Usually, the children don’t realise they are doing this and stop as soon as the teacher or teaching assistant brings it to their attention. However, there are some examples of children continuing to spam channels and continue discussions that teachers have asked to stop. To support teachers and keep these chat channels useful and relevant for the children, the following system will now be implemented:
- All comments which are unrelated to home learning will be deleted
- Teachers and TAs will remind children of appropriate Teams chat use when they are spamming or sharing non-school related material
- If a child continues this behaviour, they will be ‘muted’ for the rest of that day
- If a child continues this behaviour the following day, they will be ‘muted’ for the rest of the week
- In extreme cases children might have a longer or permanent ban from Teams chat
If a child is ‘muted’ they will be unable to contribute to text chats on the year group channel. They will still be able to access live sessions, submit ‘assignments’, read comments and download work.
Breakfast Club at St Saviour’s Infant School
If children attending the Infant School need to access the Breakfast Club, you will now need to book this a week in advance on School Gateway. The Breakfast Clubs at both schools will remain open, however as uptake during lockdown is very low we are organising staff on a day by day basis.
Bringing in toys, games and things from home
Can we remind families that children should only be bringing in essential items from home.
Teaching Your Monster to Read
One of our wonderful parents runs the website Teach Your Monster to Read (part of The Usborne Foundation) and has made over 50 high quality books (soon to be 100) available for free via a new web game.
At the moment, the game (and the books within it) will only be accessible on laptops, but they will be bringing out an app version later this year.
The game is called Reading for Fun and is available via teachyourmonstertoread.com.
The game is currently in beta (i.e. it's unfinished) but he is happy for St Saviour’s children to sign up now and is really keen to start getting these books into the hands of kids ASAP. If you would like to sign up follow the steps below:
- Go to teachyourmonstertoread.com and sign up for a free web account
- Make a player (and pick any of the three Teach Your Monster to Read games)
- On your dashboard, in the players table, tap More Games and choose Reading for Fun from the drop down list
You will find all the books in the village library, and you can do jobs around the village to earn books to keep on your monster's bookshelf.
Have fun!
SEND updates – a reminder!
Please keep checking the school website page for Sara’s updates/uploads during lockdown. There are useful tips for parents and children about working remotely that Sara has uploaded this week.
If your child is on the SEN register you will have been invited to book a slot to speak to Sara about any concerns or questions you may have. Please remember to only book a slot if you feel you would like to discuss something with her.
The slots are on a Friday morning and an email was sent directly to parents of children on the SEND register. If you feel you have been missed off the list, or did not receive an email, please contact the school office.
The link to Sara’s page is here
February half term – a DfE update
The Department for Education confirmed this week that schools will close fully for the February half term.
A thank you from the Team
The teachers and staff have asked me to say a huge thank you to our families for the support, understanding and kind messages you have passed on to them. It always means a lot to the team who are working so hard in an ever changing and tricky situation.
We hope you find these updates useful and informative.
Please have a restful and enjoyable weekend.
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Lockdown school updates – Friday 22nd January
Fri 22 Jan 2021Critical Worker school places
In line with Government policy, we are offering in school places for ‘critical workers’ and our most vulnerable children. This guidance can be found here.
We have organised our schools to offer a blended approach where children are educated at home and at school simultaneously. This has been a logistical challenge and we have invested lots of time and effort to implement this as effectively as possible.
This week we have received a number of further requests for critical worker places. In the majority of cases, it is unclear why these places are now required when they were not requested from the 4th January. Therefore, new requests being made will require further clarification.
We will be asking families to provide the following:
- Basic evidence of their critical worker employment, this could include, a payslip, official letter from their employer (on headed paper) or photo ID
- Understanding of working pattern or shifts
Due to the logistical challenge of further increasing in-school places, there will be at least a 5 working day wait time for a response, as it is likely we will need to adapt how we are organised in order to offer more critical worker places. If you are now requiring an urgent place, for example, you have been asked to work as part of the vaccine rollout, please state this clearly when contacting the school so we can respond quickly.
Please remember that we all have a responsibility to reduce interactions and break transmission, the Government are now making it clear that ‘parents and carers who are critical workers should keep their children at home if they can’. We support this position and ask our critical workers to only use a school place if they need to, this includes only using days in school that are required in order for you to work. If there is someone at home to be with your children, then they should remain at home.
Home Learning
Thank you to everyone that attended our two parent and carer feedback sessions this week. It was very useful to hear how home learning is going for our children and families. We have collected this information and will reflect on it with the school teams and make some changes.
Next week I will write to families again with further information including a FAQ’s so parents and carers that were unable to make the feedback sessions will be able to see what questions were asked and our response to these questions.
We are planning to schedule more of these meetings in the near future and gather more feedback from families.
Staff COVID Testing
You may be aware that primary school staff will be mass tested from Monday 25th January. These tests are in place for case identification and will not change any other safety measures we have in place. At this stage children will not be offered testing.
Hot Chocolate Friday #HotChocFri
All children are welcome to join Mr Beament on Teams at 3:45pm every Friday to sign off the week with some fun. Pop the kettle on, log in and join the fun! All children have received a recurring invitation on Teams. Please check your calendar each week for any cancellations or in case the time changes.
Online Library – Oak National Academy Online
The Government have launched a new free online library. Every week a popular children's author or illustrator will provide you with free books, exclusive videos and their top three recommended reads.
Click here to visit the library
School Office
Some members of our office team will be working remotely for the next couple of weeks. Where possible, can I please encourage families to email questions. If you phone it is likely you will get an answer phone, please leave a message as a member of staff will collect these message remotely and return calls as soon as possible. Please be aware that if the office returns your call this may come from a witheld/anonymous phone number rather than the usual school number.
SEND updates on website
Please keep checking the school website page for Sara’s updates/uploads during lockdown. There are useful tips for parents and children for working remotely that Sara has uploaded this week.
If your child is on the SEN register you will have been invited to book a slot to speak to Sara about any concerns or questions you may have. Please remember to only book a slot if you feel you would like to discuss something with her. The slots are on a Friday morning and an email was sent directly to parents of children on the SEND register. If you feel you have been missed off the list, or did not receive an email, please contact the school office.
The link to Sara’s page is here
We hope you find these updates useful.
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Lockdown Update – Friday 15th January
Fri 15 Jan 2021Hopefully everyone is starting to develop their new lockdown routines and managing to balance work and family commitments with home learning. Please don’t hesitate to contact us if you need support or are finding things tricky. You can contact teachers directly via Microsoft Teams or email us through the school offices.
Here are today’s updates.
Huge St Saviour’s Assemblies
We will be restarting our live online assemblies next week for groups in school and children at home. These will be set up slightly differently to live lessons and will involve children at home clicking a link that will be shared on their Teams chat. The weekly assembly will take place at 11am every Wednesday – keep your eyes peeled for the link that will be dropped in your Teams chat on Wednesday morning.
Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND) support with Sara Hibbs (SENCo)
Yesterday (Thursday) an email was sent to all families that have a child on our SEND registers inviting you to book an initial meeting with Sara. This booking system goes live on Monday 18th January at 9am. Please check your emails for more information.
Sara also has her own page on the school website, that she will be updating regularly with resources and advice for families. Please click here to visit her page.
Hot Meals
From next week, we will be able to offer hot meals for children in school as well as the sandwich options (cheese, ham or tuna). These will not be cooked onsite and will be transported in insulated containers from a local hub kitchen. Children will be able to order these meals in the normal way at registration. Junior School families will need to pay as normal through School Gateway. The menu can be seen here – next week (18/01/21) is ‘week 2’.
Free School Meals (FSM)
The Government has announced that the national FSM voucher scheme will restart on Monday 18th January. We are in the process of switching all children on FSM to this system. You should receive information on your vouchers directly. This will replace packed lunch collections that we currently have in place. Please note, that the Government have announced that vouchers will be released on a staggered basis across the country and we do not know where our schools are on this list. Therefore, family may not get their vouchers sent through on Monday but when issued the full amount will be calculated from Monday. If you child is still attending school, vouchers will not be issued as they will still be able to access a free school meal in school.
Community Food Take Away
Unfortunately, at present we do not have the staffing capacity to pack up food parcels and deliver these to families like we did in the last lockdown. We are still hoping to help our community and will be trying something new this lockdown. On a weekly basis we will put out ‘community food take away’ for families to collect outside either the Infant or Junior School. We will aim to do this every Tuesday, however the day may change if deliveries are delayed. When the food is available, we will post an update on our Twitter and Facebook page. Food for this will be supplied by the charity FareShare and is not linked to any Free School Meals scheme and therefore can be accessed by anyone that needs a bit extra for their families.
Thrive Session for Parents and Carers
During the Summer, Mrs Simmons ran a series of live Thrive sessions for Parents and Carers. These sessions were put together to give an overview of the Thrive approach, which can be used to support children (and adults), both generally and during lockdown. The sessions include specific activity ideas and scripts which could be useful in certain situations (paper copy of the scripts are linked here). These sessions were recorded and can still be accessed and watched on our school YouTube channel. Click here to visit our page.
Maths support
We have a published Maths ‘Calculation Strategy’, which can be found here on our curriculum website page (in the Mathematics section). This shows the different ways in which we approach the four operations (addition, subtraction, multiplication and division) in school, and is split into Key Stage groups as follows: EYFS (Early Years Foundation Stage: Reception), KS1 (Key Stage 1: Years 1 and 2), LKS2 (Lower Key Stage 2 – Years 3 and 4) and UKS2 (Upper Key Stage 2 – Years 5 and 6). There are separate documents for each of the four operations, and additional White Rose (our maths scheme) documents which explain the benefits of each strategy. We hope these documents will be useful when supporting children with maths calculations at home.
Online Safety
We have a dedicated website page to support families with online safety. Please click here to find out more
Safeguarding update
There are new expectations on schools regarding child protection through this lockdown. We have updated the ‘Safeguarding Policy Addendum’ to reflect these. This document can be found here.
As always thank for you for your continued support and we hope you have a relaxing weekend.
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Lockdown update
Tue 12 Jan 2021We hope that you are managing well with the current lockdown restrictions and balancing your work, home and family commitments. We are here to help and if you have any issues that you think we could support you with, please contact your class teacher via Microsoft Teams or email the school offices.
The Department for Education (DfE) guidance on schools is constantly evolving and updates are being sent to schools on an almost daily basis. Our new risk assessment is now uploaded to our website here. This document will be updated regularly. Please continue to check this page for the most recent version.
One setting
In line with the Government guidance, we are asking parents to only use one setting where possible. Can you please inform us if you have to use more than one setting.
The guidance states:
‘Parents and carers should be encouraged to limit the number of settings their child attends, ideally ensuring their child only attends the same setting consistently. This should also be the same for staff.
There may be situations where a child needs to attend more than one setting, for example, children attending a childminder before their nursery opens so that their parent or carer may go to work.’
Critical Workers – Government guidance on restricting attendance
Over the weekend there have been a number of statements and interviews from Government ministers regarding the attendance in schools. We are here to support our children of critical workers and vulnerable children and welcome children into our schools if required.
The current guidance states:
Schools should speak to parents and carers to identify who needs to go to school. If it proves necessary, schools can ask for simple evidence that the parent in question is a critical worker, such as their work ID badge or pay slip. Parents and carers who are critical workers should keep their children at home if they can.
We have had questions from families asking if their children have to attend full time. The answer to this is ‘no’. We have organised our in school provision on the basis that all children attend full time and this is available for all attending children, but this is not required, and children are welcome to attend on a part time basis. Can we ask families to inform the school which days your child(ren) will be attending. However, we do understand that some critical workers have varying shift patterns and we are happy to be flexible on a week-by-week basis.
Home Learning
I would like to thank the school teams for moving quickly to implement our home learning plan. Their dedication and commitment last week was outstanding.
Our home learning approaches and the balance of live, pre-recorded and self-managed learning will continue to develop as we reflect and assess its impact over the coming weeks.
Our initial approaches have been based on what staff assess is the most effective method of delivering the various aspects of the curriculum. Live lessons, pre-recorded lessons and paper based activities were most requested in our parent poll, and we have adapted our online offer to take into account this feedback. In addition, our parent poll showed access to devices and technology were the biggest barrier to engagement; we have begun to address this through our new laptop loaning scheme.
We issued all our home learning devices last week and are expecting a supply of DfE laptops in the coming weeks. These devices are required for families to access live and pre-recorded sessions. As we overcome these technical barriers, we will again be asking families and staff for feedback regarding our blended ‘Home Learning’ approach. We understand approaches to learning may need to change as the impact of these becomes evident. We are working hard to achieve the most effective home learning provision possible in the current situation – thank you for your patience and understanding with this.
Over the coming days, we will be updating families on the variety of ways that teachers are giving feedback to the children, and we will be sharing how children can privately share their work with teachers.
As explained in my last email, a virtual drop in session is arranged for next week for parents to drop in and share comments about the first two weeks of home learning.
We will consider all feedback and continue to work hard to strike the best balance for all our families with their Home Learning.
The details of these drop in sessions are as follows:
Infant School Drop-In – Wednesday 20th January between 16:00 and 17:00
Junior School Drop-In – Thursday 21st January between 16:00 and 17:00
During these sessions, we will not be presenting anything or sharing new information, so you do not need to attend or joinat the beginning of the session. We will be available during this slot for parents to drop in and drop out as required. Please note that this will be a public forum and if you require a private conversation you can request one during this session and we will get back to you.
The two questions about home learning we would like feedback on are:
What is going well for you and your child(ren)?
Are their ways we could improve our practice to ensure ‘Home Learning’ is as effective as possible?
These ‘Drop-In’ sessions will come through as Teams events and appear on your child’s calendars later this week. Please accept and log in using your child’s account.
Free School Meals (FSM)
If your child(ren) is at home, you are now able to collect a free packed lunch from school on a daily basis. If your child is attending school part time you are able to collect a packed lunch on the days they are at home. This is currently a sandwich packed lunch with a choice of cheese, ham or tuna sandwich fillings.
We are anticipating that the Government Voucher Scheme will be implemented shortly and we are waiting for details. Until we know more, we encourage families to take advantage of the free packed lunch option.
To request a packed lunch, please click here to find out more and complete a request form.
This option is only available for children in receipt of Free School Meals (FSM) and this does not include Infant Universal Free School Meals.
Please don’t forget
Tomorrow (Wednesday 13th January) is our book and stationery collection day. More details can be found here. When arriving please keep the two-metre distance, wear a face covering (mask and/or visor) and be prepared to queue if you arrive during a busy time.
As always, thank you for your continued support. As the guidance changes, I will write to you again with further updates.
The full DfE guidance can be found here
Best wishes,
Mr Beament
Executive Headteacher
St Saviour’s Infant Church School and St Saviour’s Junior Church School
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Home Learning Update
Wed 06 Jan 2021Thank you for your patience and understanding as we finalise our Home Learning plans and organise technology for some of our families. We hope your first two days of home learning have gone well and you are starting to settle into some new routines. We are now ready to share some more information with you regarding how Home Learning will work during this lockdown period.
Microsoft Teams
This will be our Home Learning platform, where teachers will share lessons, stream some teaching and support children through video and chat channels.
As we build and develop our approaches over the coming days, teachers will be inviting children to lessons using the Teams Calendar. Please watch this video that will help explain how you and your children can accept invites to registration, lessons and sessions and get them to appear in your child’s online calendar.
Please help your children to log in from tomorrow morning (Thursday 7th January) to get started.
We will actively try to avoid live sessions clashing across year groups but, unfortunately, this is inevitable with the increase in live teaching during this lockdown. Teachers will record the sessions so children can request recordings of a session if they miss them due to a timetable clash with a sibling or technical issue. These recordings can be requested by asking your teacher through Teams chat.
Registration
In order for us to support families with home learning and track home learning engagement, we will be taking a virtual register each day. This will be a live session and will support us with our safeguarding responsibilities but also give teachers a chance to start the day off with a hello and help the children build home learning routines.
Infant School – an electronic register will be taken at the start of the morning live sessions
Junior School – this will be a separate event happening daily between 09:00 and 09:15. All children will receive this as a calendar event (as explained above.)
Books and Stationery
We would like to offer all children lockdown exercise book(s) for them to use at home. We will also be able to offer a small amount of stationery if needed.
The books and stationery will be available to collect on Wednesday 13th January between 09:30 – 12:00 outside the Infant Office and Junior Office (please come to the relevant school office to make sure you collect the correct books).
We will also put out reading books for children to collect if they wish to do so.
Please arrive at any time between 09:30 and 12:00 on this date, wear a mask or visor when on school site and observe social distancing.
Feedback and questions
We are very keen to take feedback, answer questions and understand your challenges as we enter another period of lockdown and as we look to build and develop our Home Learning.
Therefore, we are offering a ‘Drop-in session’ for all families with myself and Sophie or Mrs Simmons. This will be a meeting on Teams and will be open for parents and carers to drop in to ask questions. We will not be presenting anything or sharing new information, so you do not need to attend at the beginning of the session. We will be available during this slot for parents to drop in and drop out as required. Please note that this will be a public forum and if you require a private conversation you can request one during this session and we will get back to you.
Infant School Drop-In – Wednesday 20th January between 16:00 and 17:00
Junior School Drop-In – Thursday 21st January between 16:00 and 17:00
These Drop-In sessions will come through as Teams events and appear on your child’s calendars. Please accept and log in using your child’s account.
SEND Support with Sara Hibbs (St Saviour’s Schools SENCo)
Sara will be running weekly ‘parents evening style’ meetings for families with children on the Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND) register. These will be optional and will be organised in the same way as parent’s evenings (using the same online platform and during the school day) with the option to sign up for slots when you require them.
Sara will be there to help you manage home learning, work with teachers and families to make sure your children can access learning at home.
Another email will be sent out next week explaining more about this.
Sara will also be uploading supporting materials to her page on the website that can be found on the home learning page by clicking here
The teachers and support staff have been working tirelessly to create a home learning offer that will hopefully engage and support children at home. Please be patient and understanding as we build on what is in place and overcome any technical issues we might experience. Teachers are also teaching and supporting critical worker children and vulnerable children in school and working to strike a manageable balance that supports all children in and outside of the school building.
Thank you for your continued support, I truly hope that working in partnership with families the home learning offer can be an engaging and fun experience for the children.
See you online!
Best wishes,
Mr Beament
Executive Headteacher
St Saviour’s Schools
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Home Learning
Tue 05 Jan 2021As you are aware earlier this year we collected survey responses and planned for isolation and possible lockdowns. This plan can be found here.
The speed of yesterday’s announcement has meant we have to respond quickly to get plans finalised and technology ready.
Children will need to access home learning menus that can be found here for Tuesday and Wednesday. This will give us time to distribute Microsoft 365 log ins if you have forgotten your password (they have not changed since they were originally distributed) and laptops.
If you have lost your Office 365 password or need a reminder, please drop your name and information on this form as soon as possible and by 8am tomorrow (Wednesday 6th January) at the latest. If your child is in Reception you do not need to fill out this form as a member of staff will be in contact with you soon.
Please share the ‘Home Learning Guide’ with your child(ren) before Thursday. This can be found here.
Laptops
We have a small bank of laptops that can be used for home learning. Please read the following document – click here.
If you would like to request a laptop please email JuniorEnquiries@stsaviours.bwmat.org by 8am tomorrow (Wednesday 6th January) at the latest with the email subject as ‘Laptop Request’. Please be aware we will have to prioritise their distribution if we have more requests than laptops available.
Internet Data
We have a limited amount of free internet data that we can distribute to families so they can access online learning. If you would like to request a sim card please email JuniorEnquiries@stsaviours.bwmat.org with the subject line as ‘Data’.
We will be in contact over the next couple of days with more information on Home Learning.
Best wishes,
Mr J Beament
Executive Headteacher
St Saviour’s Schools
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URGENT - Lockdown
Mon 04 Jan 2021Dear Parents and Carers,
We apologise for emailing at such short notice following the Government announcement at 8pm tonight.
As you will no doubt have heard, the Government have announced that the country will now be in national lockdown, and all Primary and Secondary schools will be closed.
What does this mean for my child tomorrow, Tuesday 5th January?
Nursery: Your child can attend if Tuesday is their usual day.
Infants and Juniors, all classes: Please DO NOT send your children to school tomorrow unless you are a Critical Worker or your child is vulnerable (click here for the Government definition) and you have no alternative childcare. This will allow the school staff to set up for remote learning and organise Critical Worker groups. We will communicate more about this tomorrow so please keep checking your emails.
If your child meets the above criteria for tomorrow and will be attending school, please arrive at your usual drop off time and at the usual drop off point. Breakfast club will be available to these children - please book in the normal way using the School Gateway
For children at home please use the learning menus on the website for home learning tomorrow, which can be found here: https://www.stsavioursbath.co.uk/home-learning/
Many thanks for your continued patience and understanding, and we apologise for such late communication