Dear Parents / Carers 20th March 2020
All of our members of staff are currently working hard to provide your child/ren with the best education that we can over the coming weeks and potentially months. We understand that you will have many questions and we will endeavour to keep you as informed as possible via the website newsfeed, text and email. Please review the Newsfeed on our Website regularly and look at emails we are sending too.
Information and guidance from the DFE is being given to us frequently and the increased list of ‘key workers’ means that we are now having to look at a tiered approach to having children in school. This is to ensure the very reasons for school closure are implemented.
We have asked those parents who have requested school support to give us a little more detail so that we can make good decisions based on our staffing numbers. Children’s wellbeing and safety is paramount. Thank you to all of you who have been so helpful and quick to respond -we have no doubt you’re incredibly busy too!
Below are some guiding principles from the DFE and these will also help you with your decisions.
GENERAL PRINCIPLES
The Government sets out a number of important principles to guide everybody during the closure period, which, I think are worth repeating here:
If it is at all possible for children to be at home, then they should be. If a child needs specialist support, is vulnerable or has a parent who is a critical worker, then educational provision will be available for them. Parents should not rely for childcare upon those who are advised to be in the stringent social distancing category such as grandparents, friends, or family members with underlying conditions. Parents should also do everything they can to ensure children are not mixing socially in a way which can continue to spread the virus. They should observe the same social distancing principles as adults.
Schooling for Key Workers and Vulnerable Children
To clarify, children who do not have “Key Worker” parents will need to remain at home as directed by the Government. They will have home learning tasks set by their class teachers. These will appear on Class Dojo and later, on a “class news feed” (we will send information as soon as possible following its’ launch). Many children have already received workbooks in which to record their work at home. However, if your child was not in school to receive these, please feel free to use any resources you have at home or pop in to collect workbooks (please contact the office in advance if you intend to do this).
Those children who have “Key Workers” as parents or children with an EHCP (who need specialist support for critical needs) will be able to attend school between the hours of 8.45am –3.15pm, Monday to Friday. For “Key Workers”, if you require wrap around care, please email on admin.galmpton@acexcellence.co.uk. For Breakfast Club, Lisa Croston can be contacted directly, but her provision will depend very much on numbers requiring her provision.
Children coming in for schooling should come in their school uniforms, but children attending over the Easter holidays can wear home clothes (this will be a holiday club and will only be open for confirmed key worker children). Please ensure your child comes in with their home learning pupil books so that their learning can be consistent and continuous.
Free School Meals Provision
“Key Workers” and EHCP Children attending school who are entitled to Universal Infant Free School Meals (UIFSM) or Local Authority Free School Meals (FSM), can have lunches provided if ordered via ParentPay as normal. If your child is not entitled to UIFSM / FSM but requires a lunch, please order in the normal way via ParentPay. It is vital to the running of the Kitchen that these meals are ordered in advance from home.
For children who are not attending school, but are entitled to UIFSM or FSM, this provision will remain available if required. Please pre-order lunches for your child via ParentPay in the normal way. Meals or food packages will be made available for your collection, as per our previous communication. Updates will follow once we have ascertained who requires this provision.
Therefore, again, could we please ask that if you are entitled to UIFSM / FSM but do not require lunch provision, to ensure that your pre-orders have been cancelled from ParentPay to avoid food wastage.
We appreciate all your support and thank you for your understanding during these challenging times. We will do our best to answer any questions you may have. The School Office will remain open and will endeavour to respond as quickly as possible to enquiries.
Home Learning
Teachers will post learning for each day by 8pm the previous evening. There are a couple of parents in each class (not EYFS) who have not signed up to Class Dojo, please do so.
As soon as the Newsfeed on class pages is set up teachers will inform you.
Teachers will be contacting parents where children are not accessing learning. Please do let teachers know if there are any difficulties with the learning tasks set.
All children have been given a Pupil Maths exercise book and a journal. Each day teachers will set a Maths session, a reading/writing lesson and an ongoing Learning enquiry task (initially our Learning is linked to Science and Design technology! Children are used to using a journal now, but teachers will be giving lots of guidance. Again any questions just ask teachers.
Our responsibility is to provide your child with lessons at home. We fully appreciate the challenge this may provide for many parents, especially working parents. Again, please message teachers and ask for additional support or clarification.
Contacting School During Closure:
To reiterate, please contact the school by email throughout the closure. The Office will be operational throughout, although possibly not physically manned. You are welcome to leave answer phone messages on the school telephone, which will be picked up during office manned hours. Please contact the office or you child’s class teacher via email for educational questions and enquiries.
School office: 01803 842628 email: admin.galmpton@acexcellence.co.uk
YR faye.butler@acexcellence.co.uk
Y1 emily.paskin@acexcellence.co.uk
Y2 john.hicks@acexcellence.co.uk
Y3 rebecca.peace@acexcellence.co.uk
Y4 nicola.hartley@acexcellence.co.uk
Y5 jack.johansen@acexcellence.co.uk
Y6 annette.smith@acexcellence.co.uk
Thank you for your support in these unprecedented times.
I would like to take this opportunity, to convey my own and Galmpton staff member’s sincere best wishes and prayers to each and every family during these uncertain times.
Yours faithfully,
Katy Burns
Head Teacher