School Opening Update

Details

Published: Thursday, 14 May 2020 11:13

Written by Mrs Harvey

School Update

Dear Parents

The BBC wrote the following summary after Boris Johnson’s speech yesterday, Sunday 10 May 2020.

Will schools reopen before the summer holidays?

Prime Minister Boris Johnson said on Sunday that primary schools in England might start to reopen from 1 June at the earliest.  Any reopening would be conditional on both the R number, which is the virus's reproduction rate, and the number of new infections staying low.

He said pupils in Reception, Year 1 and Year 6 might be able to return in stages.

No mention was made about any changes affecting nurseries.

How would a phased return work?

A phased return could mean that a few year groups would be the first to return to school or that pupils would take turns to study at home and in school.  This would allow schools to maintain some level of social distancing.

It might also mean staggering break times and putting limits on class sizes.

A phased return may also mean that some pupils will not return until the autumn term - or at least for anything like a regular timetable.

Bridgewater Initial Thoughts:

We are looking forward to the gradual return of our children and will do our utmost to ensure that they are as happy and as safe as possible in school when the time comes.

We won’t know what our plans will look like in detail until we have further guidance; however, we could possibly take the following approach:

• We will continue to prioritise the vulnerable and children of key workers who will still be grouped together, if their year group haven’t yet returned to school.
• We would like to get the whole of Y6 in school and spread them across the Y5 and Y6 classrooms with staff from Y6 and HLTAs, enabling the Y5 staff to continue working with the Seesaw platform from home.
• We would like to have half of EYs in one week and half the following week enabling them to be in school alternate weeks.  We would keep them in the EYs unit, allow them time to adjust, identify where the children are and work hard to narrow any gaps that will have appeared.  It would allow us to build the transition to Y1 ensuring their well-being and attitudes to learning are as strong as possible.
• We would also like to have half of Y1 in one week and half the following week enabling them to be in school alternate weeks.  We would keep them in the Y1 class area, allowing them time to adjust, identify where the children are and work hard to narrow any gaps that will have appeared.  It would allow us to consolidate and progress on the phonics and the building blocks to reading, which in turn underpins the whole curriculum.  We could gradually introduce new learning allowing the children to progress in maths, science and all other curriculum areas.
• When EYs and Y1 are on their alternate weeks there would be consolidation learning uploaded to Tapestry or Seesaw; however, the teachers may not be able to respond in as much detail as they do now as they would be working with children both in school and at home.
• We plan to stagger start times and collection times, as well as rota lunches and break times, enabling us to maintain social distancing.  We will try to make it as easy as possible for families with siblings.
• This will allow all other year groups to continue their learning on Seesaw.

These ideas may evolve and change but we will adapt as we go in response to government and LA updates with the best interests of all the children at the heart of any decisions. 

I hope you all enjoyed the VE Day celebrations this weekend.

Best wishes

Alison Harvey