Dear Parents,
Over the past two weeks, lots has been put into place at Braywood. Parents hopefully have seen a welcome video, had an opportunity to chat with their teacher and received plenty of work activities. Most parents seem to have got into a routine and there is a good standard of work coming into school. Thank you!
The Government expects that children in primary schools should receive three hours of daily remote learning. They advise that remote learning can be delivered in a variety of ways. We have easily achieved this goal during the last lockdown and our teachers continue to strive to provide the best possible online experience.
There is a letter from the LEA attached giving the borough's overview of this Government guidance. Overall, the advice is too 'stay at home'.
Our approach is to deliver a range of learning mediums because our parents want different types of remote learning experiences. Some parents want daily assignments because they want a daily routine to adhere to, whilst other parents find daily assignments harder because their working patterns make this more of a challenge. Flexibility in this approach allows work to be assigned at every parent's discretion. Teachers have realistic expectations during this period and to help the learning process there are substantially more videos available explaining the daily tasks. Older children are encouraged to log onto their own eschools platform and send their work and/or messages to their class teacher themselves.
To allow children to learn alongside their teacher, encrypted communication systems (through Google Meet) have been in place since October. This offers a visual platform to complement eschools and most parents have already accessed this with their child. As educators we feel that this will have a real impact.
To recap, we have two distinct virtual learning forums. Firstly, through small, differentiated teaching groups with a staff member. This will look different depending upon the age of the children, but every child will have a voice. Secondly, we have set up regular small, support groups. This is for children who would like to show or ask questions about a specific teaching task. Children do not need to attend every time and the focus is on children who are having problems at home. If both these groups are to succeed, parents need to attend with their child to support their learning behaviours.
Again, some parents are keen to have online, virtual lessons and others find this restricted timetable very difficult to juggle. For the parents who would like more virtual online lessons we are recommending Oak Academy or CBBC where the lessons are of a high standard, engaging and age differentiated. There is a plethora of resources available for parents and attached is a list of school teaching resources. Other specific ideas are: -
Rock Steady Good Fridays @ https://www.rocksteadymusicschool.com/primary
Blue Peter @ Blue Peter on YouTube at CBBC
Yoga sessions @ https://www.thebugsgroup.com/yogabugsvirtual
For parents who have issues with the availability of electronic devices a lot of these programmes can be accessed through Smart TV, X-box or equivalent. As during the last lockdown, social friendship grouping can be set up by our parents through zoom, WhatsApp etc for children to relax and have fun with their friends. To hear what other parents are doing, there is an interesting link at https://www.familyfirst.co.uk
Sonia is back cooking on site today (Tuesday 19th February). We are working to the usual timetable which does not really alter. We are on Week 3.
The NHS are telling parents that children can still get protection against flu through the nasal flu vaccination programme. They want to stress how this is still very important to protect your child and to reduce pressure on the NHS system. There are a range of locations in Windsor and Maidenhead. If you are interested, you can call until 5th February on 0300 365 0077 or email schoolImmunisationTeam@berkshire.nhs.uk
There has been a change of address for our uniform provider. This should not impact any ordering you do online:
Schools Direct Ltd
20A Buckingham Avenue Slough
Berkshire SL1 4QA
T: 01628 665353
Email: info@schooldaysdirect.co.uk
Let’s hope that we all continue to stay safe.
Kind regards
Susan Calvert