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Hope
As the talk at the moment is how/when will lockdown begin to ease I’ve found myself saying to my own children when they ask ‘do you think we will be able to…,’ I begin my reply with, ‘we can only hope that…’ because we still have so much uncertainty about what our new normal will be like. What we can be certain of is the lockdown is working and we must continue with it, as long as we are advised to, whilst maintaining our hope that when the time is right we will be able to begin the journey of returning to familiar activities.
The Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby has recorded an assembly for schools, it’s about 6 mins long and can be found at this link. The theme of the assembly is hope.
The National Literacy Trust has shared this beautiful new book The Book of Hopes: Words and Pictures to Comfort, Inspire and Entertain Children in Lockdown, edited by Katherine Rundell, can be read for free on our Family Zone
I hope to get my hands on this!
Next Friday 8th May is VE day, Mrs Richardson has added a page of ideas for commemorating this day on the homelearning page.
Hopefully you have received this newsletter via Szapp. If not and you just receive info via parentpay and the website, please if you can, download it. It was launched 2 weeks before lockdown. It has been a great way of sending out information and helping our school community to stay connected when we can’t be together. Mr Campbell most days sends an episode of The Chronicle in which the school adults are sharing films about what they have been doing at home or ideas to try.
We are also now uploading your news and photos here too in the News feed.
There is lots of discussion and sharing of experiences in the media about the highs and lows of homeschooling. At Christ Church we call it homelearning. Learning happens everywhere, for a young person school is somewhere they go each day to meet their friends, play, join assembly, eat their lunch and work with a big team of adults. Young people don’t know the verb ‘to school’ they think of the place. When we started lockdown we set out to provide a bank of ideas/materials/ activity suggestions that parents/carers could use at home.
We are aiming to get the balance right for a whole range of family circumstances. Similarly the staff team have a whole range of family circumstance.
Each week the teachers are creating a bank of learning activities; Literacy and Numeracy as well as the wider curriculum. We recognise printing worksheets might not be possible and the sharing of IT devices may be needed Some of the ideas link to the use of IT but others don’t require IT because we know this may not be available for everyone.
The most important aim is for the children to enjoy, gain a sense of achievement and take some ownership of what they are doing at home. Six weeks into the lockdown the children may show their frustration and anxiety about being at home and not in school, when they are asked to do activities. It might not be anything to do with not understanding the task it might just be because they are trying to tell you they would rather be in school learning. For this reason we are not asking for work to be sent to the teachers for marking. Marking in school is now more instant verbal feedback. Now is not the time for the teachers to be correcting mistakes as they would in school. Parents/carers are the best placed to give praise, point our errors or support with suggestions for improving. Therefore, we would like to celebrate anything the children have achieved at home. Send in some photos (1 or 2) via Szapp or email and the office will pass them onto the teachers. We will upload some as well. Create a folder of ‘homelearning’ for your child to bring in when we return to school.
Log-ins
If you have difficulty or have mislaid your log-in to any of the websites we subscribe to recommended in the year group homelearning, please email and we will forward them to you.
We can only all aim to do our best for our children. When we open our school doors again, we will I am sure spend time reflecting and coming to terms with the lockdown experience and our new routines, but no-one will judge the ‘homeschooling.’ The teachers want to see the children back in school as much as I do, safe and sound, the building has no soul without them. Then when we are ready to learn we will pick up from wherever we have got to. During next week the school staff will be sending out a chatty email to their classes to share their news and to let the children know they are thinking of them.