Thursday 25th June, 2020
Dear Parents/Carers,
I would like to start by once again saying thank you to you all for your support for the school. These last few months have been challenging for us all. I know from speaking to parents that whilst it has been nice to spend quality time with your children undertaking a whole range of different activities with them, it has also been challenging at times to meet the home learning needs whilst, for many, working from home yourselves. Staff at Cliftonville have also been in the same position! I also know that many of you are maybe frustrated because you would like to have your children back at school; for them to be learning with their teachers and their friends. We feel the same way. We would love to have all the children back too.
You may like to learn that along with the increasing number of Keyworker groups, we have had the Y6 returning successfully. The Reception children will be starting on Tuesday 30th and we are hopeful that we will be able to offer some provision to Y1’s before the end of the term. I understand that this may not help those parents of Y2-5 and if there were some way to have them back as well, we would.
You will now all had a text confirming that the school will be closed from Wednesday 22nd July at 12 o’clock and will remain closed over the summer holidays until our return in September. We are hoping to offer a couple of mornings where parents will be able to drop off any reading books they may have and pick up a new reading book. There will be further details about this later this term.
Following on from the government’s announcement on Friday 19th that all children will be returning to school in September, we are waiting on the guidance promised to help us plan what that may look like in reality. Once again, I am asking you to please bear with us. As soon as we have seen and digested that guidance we will be letting all parents know about the September start. I can inform you though that transition to your child’s new year group will happen in the first few days back in September.
For now, we are also concentrating on the end of year arrangements. Your feedback from the remote learning survey has really helped us clarify our thinking around the use of technology and we will be trialling some software in the coming weeks. I am really pleased that the PowerPoints with audio has gone down well with the children and we shall obviously continue with these. Now we have more staff on site we will be starting to make phone calls home to you all – just checking in with your childs class teacher or year group leader. We hope these will be useful and enjoyed by the children and yourselves. Finally, we will be having some pre-recorded video end of term assemblies for the whole school and separate ones for the year groups. Further details will come out about these and how you will be able to view them. The Y6 leavers event information will come out separately.
In the meantime, stay safe and keep well.
Yours sincerely,