The Environment
I hope you all enjoyed your snow day on Monday. Apologies to those of you, who were affected by closing the school. Closing the school is always a difficult decision, but I have to consider the risk factors for both staff and children. Many of the staff travel a distance to get to school, and the conditions on Monday morning would have made it very difficult to travel into Burton. To be honest, I am not sure we would have made it up Bearwood Hill, it was still icy on Tuesday morning!
As it turned out, Monday was a beautiful, sunny, snowy day, I hope you all took the opportunity to get outside and take in some much needed fresh air. I am lucky enough to live near fields and woods, and on that Monday, the countryside was covered in a blanket of snow and I felt like I was in a winter wonderland. The clarity of the snow, the stillness of the air was rejuvenating and lifted my spirits. In these strange times, the environment and the nature around us, help us to remain positive and does wonders for our wellbeing. It was great to see so many of your snow day pictures.
Today’s blog starts with an environmental theme with an invite to the children to attend a workshop; and ends with a poem, with lots of information in between.
In the Autumn Term Miss Gallagher set up the ECO Warriors in school. Their role was to help the school environment. This included keeping the place tidy, investigating ways we could save energy and to explore ways that the school could get involved with recycling. The team were really starting to get into the swing of things, when lockdown happened. I am sure they will pick up their good work, when everybody returns to school.
In keeping with our environmentally friendly ethos, we have been lucky to secure some workshops from Severn Trent Water. The children in school will be completing these workshops in school. However, we did not want to leave out the children at home, who are completing remote learning. Therefore, we would like to invite the children at home to take part in a Severn Trent Water Workshop on Thursday 4th February at 11am. Details can be found below in the letter from Leanne at Severn Trent Water. Miss Gallagher will also be on the Zoom Call, so we look forward to seeing as many of you as possible there.
Letter from Severn Trent Water
Dear Children,
Thursday 4 February at 11am we’re having a special Zoom session hosted by Leanne from Severn Trent Water. You will need to click on this link 5 minutes before the time to register and be ready for Leanne to start.
If you click on the session before this you should see a screen that says oops the session hasn’t started yet and then a video underneath. Please just refresh at the right time.
Once the session is live you’ll go through to the main screen… this is what you’ll see.
This section is where Leanne will be speaking from and displaying the videos and pledges (you will be able to see her but she can’t see you)… you can make this full screen by clicking the bottom right hand corner and a little icon with four arrows will appear click this to make the screen bigger. To get back to the page at any time just press the esc key.
You can ask any questions during the presentation you can just type them into the box label Q&A in the top left corner.
Leanne will answer all questions as best as she can at the end of the session, if we run out of time I’ll ask Leanne to send the responses to me.
Also under the Q&A section there is an option for you to rate the session out of 5 stars and also leave feedback, anyone can do this and I love to hear all the comments.
Everyone watching gets one vote, so all you need to do when asked by Leanne is click the button in the pledge you want to make and then click make my pledge with the big green tick.
Leanne is looking forward to delivering the session and will see you soon.
Severn Trent Water
A Brilliant Idea!
This week I received a wonderful email from one of the parents taking part in remote learning at home. The email really made me smile, because she was obviously very proud of how well her children were doing at home. Great news!
She also shared with me a great idea! Introducing a “Star of the Week” for the children working from home. Therefore, from next week, I will be announcing a “Remote Learner Star of the Week” every Friday in my blog. There will be a special reward for those children.
If you have a child at home, who deserves a ‘special mention’ then send me an email, with their nomination, and a brief description of their hard work and positive attitude. If I could have your nominations by Wednesday each week, this gives me time to add the names to my blog.
If anybody else has any great ideas - please feel free to share!
Survey
If your child is participating in remote learning, you should have received a survey monkey questionnaire to complete, asking for your thoughts on the blogs and our remote learning offer. Thank you if you have already completed the survey. If you haven’t, please could you complete the survey by Monday. This will help us to continue to improve remote learning for the children at home. You should have received the link to the survey via the text messaging service. Results will be shared with you all next week.
Half term Week
The Department for Education (DfE) announced this week that: “Schools will close as usual over February half-term and are not expected to remain open to vulnerable children and the children of critical workers during that week.”
This means that school will be closed to ALL pupils during the week beginning Monday 15th February. In addition, the blogs for remote learning will not be updated this week. I am sure that you will agree with me, that the staff have worked incredibly hard maintaining remote learning and teaching children in school, and therefore deserve a well earned break. I am sure all of you at home, would also be glad of a break from the remote learning!
Staff will not be answering emails during the half term break, however I will still check my email. Therefore if there is an emergency, or you need to report a positive case, you will be able to contact me on win-headteacher@win.jtmat.co.uk throughout the half term break.
Mr Johnson’s Plan to Re-open Schools fully
You may have heard on Wednesday, the Prime Minister’s announcement in Parliament, about the steps out of lockdown and to the reopening fully of schools. The announcement did not give any details and nothing was set in stone. Mr Johnson said that there will be a fuller, more detailed announcement, straight after half term, week beginning Monday 22nd February. He did mention Monday 8th March, as a possible date for schools to reopen, if the data says it is safe to do so. However, I must stress that this is provisional and nothing is certain yet, and may be a phased return for specific year groups or areas. At the moment it is all; possibles, may be’s and could be’s. As soon as all the children are allowed back, I will let you know. Watch this space…
Safer Internet Day
Tuesday 2nd February is Safer Internet Day. This is very apt at the moment, as so many of us are relying on the Internet to communicate with each other. The children in school will be completing various activities to make them more aware of the dangers of the Internet. For those children accessing remote learning, have a look at the class blogs next week - there will be some activities for you to complete, to encourage safer internet usage.
Spellbound
Emily Brontë
The night is darkening round me,
The wild winds coldly blow;
But a tyrant spell has bound me
And I cannot, cannot go.
The giant trees are bending
Their bare boughs weighed with snow.
And the storm is fast descending,
And yet I cannot go.
Clouds beyond clouds above me,
Wastes beyond wastes below;
But nothing drear can move me;
I will not, cannot go.
Remember, school is here to help if you need us.
Stay safe…. and help keep others safe
Miss Goodson
Next week….. Results of the Survey, plus Stars of the Week (send in your nominations!)