News

You’ve got through the week!

To the mums, dads, carers of Scholes children: well done! You did it – you got to the end of the week, and for that, you should feel pleased with yourselves. We know it’s been tough. It’s the weekend now, and it’ll be a strange one in this ‘new norm’.

Try to find ways to relax. Maybe you can include a David Walliams story part of that. He’s reading a free audio story every day at the moment. Each day’s story can be heard here, or your child can listen live at 11am (perfect time for you to have a break and a cuppa).

Leeds emergency food provision and mental health support

Due to the rapidly evolving situation, for up to date information on where help and provisions can be accessed in the city, visit: https://www.leeds.gov.uk/leedsmic or https://leedsfoodaidnetwork.co.uk/document/.

If you are finding it difficult to access food due to financial constraints, self-isolation or accessibility of food provision, then you are eligible for help. Leeds City Council are putting additional support in place to ensure everyone is able to access the food they need.

Finally, whether you’re a key worker or at home, you may be worried and anxious about the current situation.  To support your mental health and well-being we would recommend:  https://www.mindwell-leeds.org.uk/

Home learning (27 March 2020)

We’ll start with our third top tip to support your child…

Tip number 3: practical tasks for practice

We all agree we’d rather have all the children in school, the best place to learn different subjects and develop socially and emotionally, too. And we all agree that home learning is tough, especially when many of you will be working from home, too (and all of us are feeling cooped up so much).

There’s one thing about being at home that’s a real advantage, though, and that’s the chance to get your child joining in with practical tasks around the house.

• For younger children, setting the table can help to develop motor skills and promote characteristics of effective learning like being involved, concentrating and enjoying achieving what they set out to do.
• Being at home is a perfect chance to practise telling the time (by the end of the school year, most Year 1 children should be able to tell the time to the hour and half past the hour) – so what time does PE with Joe Wicks or Let’s go Live with Maddie and Greg start, or what time is lunch? For older children, how much longer until then?
• For older children, serving out food can help to develop mathematical skills of estimation and fractions.
• Have you a flat-pack that’s been lying around waiting to be assembled? Think about the reading skills and design and technology skills that will be developed if your child gets stuck in to help with this.
• Even putting something in a microwave is an opportunity – what power is the microwave and how can we set the time to match?

Often, our instinct is to get on and do the job while the children are occupied elsewhere – it’s usually easier that way. However, it might help to try to look out for these opportunities. Some children learn better by doing things in a practical way. Don’t feel you must insist on all three home learning tasks done if you feel confident they’re practising skills in a more practical way.

Two new suggestions to support your child’s learning…

Why not join Leeds library online? Once you’ve joined, you can use their e-reading options, which are free and a great way to spend time, learn something new or look after your wellbeing.

The Maths Factor, endorsed by Carol Voderman, is free to use at the moment. It’s a comprehensive package of tutorials. We’d suggest your child watches one a couple of times and then perhaps has a go at something similar. You could work your way through them one by one, or dip in and out, looking at the one that most closely matches the home learning that’s been set by the teacher.

We’ve added both links to our menu of useful home learning sites.

Finally, a repeat call to respond…

Do you need to use school during the pandemic? It would really help us to plan ahead if you can complete this short form and return to us by email (or call us on the number provided if you can’t email). The dates on the form go right through the Easter holidays and include the bank holidays – we’re doing our best to be able to open throughout this situation. Please only consider this in light of current guidelines.

Home learning (26 March 2020)

In today’s update, we’ve a second top tip for the week. There’ll be another one tomorrow…

Tip number 2: struggling with a home learning task

Our teachers are trying to make sure that the tasks they set are accessible to all – they should often cover previous learning (giving your child a chance to practise existing skills) or they should be quite open-ended (meaning your child can approach the task in different ways, to suit his/her needs).

However, you still might sometimes find that your child (or you!) is struggling with a home learning task. If this is the case, please don’t become stressed or anxious, and don’t try to push your child in a way that could make him/her really reluctant to do more. Instead, we’ve three suggestions:

You could try emailing your child’s teacher. Each teacher will have published on the Homework page their email address – it’ll follow the same pattern as joebloggs@spherefederation.org

Teachers aim to reply on the same day, but it might involve a wait. So, another solution could be to check out a home learning task that’s been set by a teacher in one of our sister Sphere Federation schools:

• Moortown Primary homework pages
• Scholes (Elmet) Primary homework pages
• St James’ CE Primary homework pages

(Some of our teachers work really closely across the schools and will have shared the same home learning tasks, so sorry if this suggestion doesn’t always work out.)

The third suggestion is to try something completely different from this list of home learning activities. (We’ve mentioned this before, but this list has a couple of updates.) The home learning tasks are a guide, but you can choose to be flexible in your approach.

A final piece of advice we can give you is a repeat: stay calm and don’t get stressed about it. If your child can do two of the three tasks successfully, plus some daily reading and practice of something like counting or times tables, then that’s already a productive day.

And a few more things to say…

During this time, your child might end up being online more than they normally would. There are lots of sites to help make sure your child stays safe online – Thinkuknow is one of them. They’ve produced a short guide for parents of primary and secondary children.

We know that this is a difficult and worrying time for everyone – but particularly so for adults and children living with domestic abuse. If this affects you or someone you know, check out these resources to help support you through this time. As always, if you or someone else is in immediate danger please call 999 and ask for the police.

Finally, apologies to you for the short time when our websites experienced a glitch yesterday. It was for a really short period of time thanks to the support team we use, but we know at a time like this (maybe half-way through a home learning task even!), it wasn’t ideal. (Thanks to the parents who alerted us, too.)

Home learning (25 March 2020)

Once again, we’re going to start this update with a big thank you to you, the parents and carers. We know this is tough for you. One of our own teachers with two children has commented that finding the balance between supporting her own children whilst working from home is tough. Remember, though, you’re doing a great job in tough times.

In today’s update, we’ve a top tip. There’ll be another one tomorrow and one more on Friday…

Tip number 1: supporting more than one child at home

If you’ve got more than one child at home, you might like to access the home learning tasks using different devices – perhaps one on a computer at home, and one on a mobile phone. (Like most websites these days, ours is set up so that looking at it on a smartphone works, with no squashed text or other content.) This will mean the children can settle to their learning at roughly the same time.

Another solution to support home learning with more than one child is to balance things out: quiet reading for one, and the home learning task for another.

And a third way might be for both children to have a go at the same task. This won’t always work, but often will, maybe with a tweak or two. For example, if a younger child is set a phonics challenge (such as spotting things around the house that begin with a ‘ch’ sound, like ‘chip’), the older child could be set the same task, but with longer words, or words that have ‘sh’ somewhere other than at the start (like ‘kitchen’).

If you’ve established a routine that includes PE with Joe Wicks at 9am, that could also give you time to check out the tasks for each of your children and think about how to be flexible, making them work for you and your children.

We’re going to end the update with another thank you, and that’s to you again. On behalf of all the teachers, the Heads of School and me, we’re saying thank you for the great feedback we’ve been getting for the communications. In these socially distanced times, we’re really happy to hear what we’re doing remotely is helping in some way.

Please help us plan ahead

Are you a parent or carer who may need to use school during the pandemic?

It would really help us to plan ahead if you can complete this short form and return to us by email (or call us on the number provided if you can’t email). The dates on the form go right through the Easter holidays and include the bank holidays – we’re doing our best to be able to open throughout this situation. (Thank you to all the staff who have been able to commit to this.)

Please only consider this in light of current guidelines:

• The government has asked parent to keep their children at home, wherever possible: the fewer children in educational settings, the lower the risk that the virus can spread.
• The government has set out key principles to ensure we are providing childcare for a limited number of children and only those who absolutely need to attend.
• Every child who can be safely cared for at home, should be.

Home learning (24 March 2020)

We hope your first day of home learning went well.

Yesterday, we suggested getting a timetable up and running with your child, to help them get into routines, and we shared various websites that can help to support you.

It’s completely understandable that you’re feeling stressed right now – most parents will be feeling the same. Here’s a few things to bear in mind:

• Combine home learning with some practical tasks, like helping to prepare lunch and doing the washing up. They can be added to the routine of the day and are great for developing a sense of responsibility. Try to invest the time now so your child becomes really good at a household job – first one, then another and perhaps a third.
• The ideas, and the suggested timetable we shared yesterday, are for guidance. You’re not falling short if you don’t quite manage to achieve everything we’ve suggested – we understand that many of you are trying to work from home as well.
• It might help to build up the timetable, taking on board something new one at a time. It’s important to really secure one or two things done well before trying to get it all right from the outset.

For parents of younger children, you might be reassured to know there are plenty of countries where children don’t actually start school until children are about seven. Some education professionals argue that in the UK we push our children too quickly down an academic route rather than securing really strong characteristics of effective learning. These feature in Early Years settings and they’re something you can develop and nurture at home. With these characteristics, children are well-suited to make good progress later on, so try to develop those at home.

And now a top tip… (and one I’ve tried out at home, too!)

Why not encourage your child to take a virtual mountain bike ride, courtesy of imoves? Go on a speedy journey travelling through forests and trees, over bridges and much more! Once they’ve done the ride, get them to think about the ride they’ve just been on. What did they see, smell or hear? How did it make them feel? imoves has a whole range of ways to support physical health and mental health and wellbeing, quick blasts of exercise to calming meditations.

(Yep – I’ve taken the virtual bike ride in my kitchen last night!)

School’s closed: how to support your child’s home learning (23 March 2020)

We can’t imagine how your first day of home learning has gone. In normal circumstances, a day off school like a ‘snow day’ can feel like a bonus, an unexpected holiday. Our children are clued up and know this current situation is more serious and longer-term. We really encourage you to establish a routine for home learning: we could be in this situation for a while and so it’s important for your child’s wellbeing and education to have some structure and routines in the day, just like at school (it might even help you, too).

Why not sit with your child and work out a timetable? This will help your child to have a sense of routine and develop clear expectations – it’s definitely worth the investment in time (teachers spend a lot of September establishing this with a new class!).

• Perhaps your child starts the day at 9am with a live PE session from Joe Wicks (Monday to Friday).
• Your child could then do a couple of the home learning challenges set by the class teacher with a short break in between.
• Most younger children learn phonics just after Wake Up Shake Up in school – that’s at 10.10am. Stick to the same pattern using Phonics Play. (Children in Key Stage 2 could practise spellings in this time, too, looking back at previous lists or even making their own.)
• A mindfulness session mid-morning might be a good idea, or another workout session – Jump Start Jonny features both on a really easy to use website.
• After this, perhaps your child has a go at French, Spanish or even a new language using Duolingo – try to stick to one language so they can really progress in it – and impress us all when they return to school!
• The third home learning challenge could come straight after lunch.
• This could be followed by some reading – either independently or listening to an audiobook. (Audible has free access at the moment.)
• Maybe in the afternoon, they do another workout – one of his High-Intensity Interval Training (HIIT) workouts specifically designed for children – or some iMoves that are linked to Maths and English.

You could use the ideas above, but we’d encourage you to agree a few things:

• timings for each activity
• the maximum amount of times they’re allowed to interrupt within each session
• don’t forget to weave into the day time for quiet reading, times tables or number bonds practice (eg 8+2=10 and 2+8=10, 18+2 and 2+18, 80+20 and 20+80), and handwriting practice
• what they should do if they finish early (we’d suggest you definitely avoid letting them drift online – stick to the task and see if they can come up with some extra learning linked to it)

Read our home learning suggestions to help you create a schedule of learning activities for your child. (This has already been updated with a couple of extra tips since we last published it.)

Finally, in all this, your child will be confused and anxious. It’s important that children have some sort of understanding of what’s going on at the moment, and some resources from Ineqe might be a good place to start:

• What exactly is coronavirus?
• What’s the difference between coronavirus and COVID-19?
• And even: what does the 19 mean?

Find the answers in the video or the storybook – and then try out the resource.

School’s closed: keep your child at home if it’s at all possible (23 March 2020)

We’ve had fewer children in school than we anticipated – thank you for acting on the clear message: keep your child at home if it’s at all possible.

This letter (23 March 2020) from Saleem Tariq, Director of Children and Families for Leeds City Council, backs up the message:

‘We understand that these are uncertain times for everyone, and whilst the schools are closed it can seem harder to find information about what this means for you.  School websites will be updated, letting you know about your own child’s school, and we will be posting up to date information on the Council website too.

We have received lots of enquiries about what it means to be a key worker and whether your child should be attending school from Monday 23rd March.

Our advice to parents is clear: Every child who can be safely cared for at home should be

It is really important that we all work together to stop the Covid-19 virus from spreading, and children staying at home helps to do this.  For the majority of children this is the safest place to be.

Schools will not be able to look after large numbers of pupils safely, as their own staff will also have to follow the rules about self-isolating.

The final decision as to whether a child can be safely accommodated at the school rests with the Headteacher/Principal based on their risk assessment of the situation.  The Local Authority are supporting Headteachers/Principals in applying the following principles:

• Schools remain open only for those children who absolutely need to attend.
• The majority of children will be made safer by adhering to the principle above.
• School is open to pupils of key workers only where they would not be safe at home and the parents have no other option but for their child to be at school if they are to continue to do their jobs.

If your child has an Education Health Care Plan or a social worker, the decision as to whether they should attend school will be made in consultation with the Headteacher, parents and social workers. If your child can be looked after at home safely, then they should be. Staffing levels may not be high enough for all children to attend.

Headteachers and education staff are playing a crucial part in the national Covid-19 strategy. We would like to thank them for doing all they can to keep our city functioning at this difficult time and in supporting parents to play their vital role in the effort.’

School’s closed: keep your child at home if it’s at all possible (22 March 2020)

The government has stressed the importance of keeping your child at home wherever possible.

It has asked schools to remain open only for those children who absolutely need to attend.

The situation nationally is serious. Social distancing and protecting NHS and other key workers have placed teachers and schools in the front line. Few people will come into contact with others in the same way teachers and support staff will. If we close our doors, our health service and other critical services will quickly become over-stretched.

We need to take emergency steps to reduce the spread of the virus. We need as many people as possible to avoid sending their children into school. This will protect children and staff.

To NHS staff, emergency service staff, and key workers, we’re proud to stand shoulder to shoulder with you and will welcome your children into our schools, providing education, entertainment and support.

These are examples of key workers:

• NHS staff = key workers
• Other medical professions like pharmacy staff = key workers
• Emergency services like the police and firefighters = key workers
• Social care = key workers
• Supermarket workers, food warehouses, transport for food = key workers
• Utilities (electric, gas, water) staff + key workers

Even these key workers may be able to look after their children if their shift patterns allow or their partners work from home or is not a key worker.

To other parents, please support us by keeping your child at home. Examples of non-key workers:

Legal professionals (eg solicitors) = not key workers

Retail, not related to food = not key workers

Takeaway staff = not key workers

Builders, construction workers = not key workers, unless directly working in critical areas above (eg hospital maintenance)

We’ll be asking for shift rota evidence and ID. We’ll also be asking about partners or others in the home.

Please understand, this is emergency support.

If we want to reduce the spread of Covid-19, we need your help.

Teachers and other staff are worried. They don’t have protective masks etc, so if you, your child, or others in your house are ill – stay at home. Isolate and follow medical advice. Do not under any circumstances send your child to school.

In the event of severe staff shortages, we’ll need to close. If this happens, the government has agreed to work with the local authority, regional school commissioners and neighbouring providers to find an alternative setting for pupils. Please check the website regularly for updates.