Keep up to date with all the latest news happening in school at the moment.
We sincerely hope you are finding a bit of a routine now and are enjoying the contact we are keeping with you and tasks we are setting.
When in school a huge part of the role we undertake is a pastoral one - ensuring the well-being and safety of children. Our relationships with you are central to that role and the partnership we have with you is one we treasure. Now that we have been enabling home learning for a week, we feel the next step is to secure contact with you and your children to facilitate this role.
Teachers are able to see that children are engaging in online activities through an activity log on both Times Table Rock Stars and Purple Mash, and children's contributions to class blogs are insightful but it is more difficult to measure success or engagement in 'offline' activities. A number of parents have already utilised the class email systems we have set up - using it to share work and projects the children have completed and to ask questions about the tasks set. We have been grateful for the respectful way in which this has been done, as it was stipulated from the outset that the purpose of these email addresses was quite specific and said that staff would not respond to emails that fall outside of their purpose or, more importantly professional boundaries. This has made interacting with these email accounts very manageable and staff feel that they can now be further utilised.
We would like you to use the email accounts to check in with the class teacher on a weekly basis. You can share your child's work, let the teacher know which activities they have enjoyed or what they have struggled with. In this way, staff can ensure contact is kept with you and gain an understanding of the learning being done. Staff will not read emails outside of the hours of 9.00am and 3.00pm, and will respond only when necessary and within their professional boundaries and remit.
If you wish to get in touch with the school regarding any other business, please email office@langar.notts.sch.uk. Please continue to check the school website (ideally via the app) as it is our main form of communication with you and the place where updates and information will be shared.
These are challenging times and many families are feeling under pressure, this can affect the safety and well-being of the children in it. If you have a safeguarding concern, or you are worried, please contact Nottinghamshire Safeguarding Hub (The MASH) on 0300 500 80 90. If you feel a child is in urgent need of help you should contact Nottinghamshire Police 999.
Please stay in touch and look after yourselves,
Mrs Brown
Following the announcement from the Prime Minister last night, we have had a dramatic fall in the number of families utilising us for childcare whilst they carry out their roles as key workers. These numbers have dropped so low, that the Local Authority have advised us to close the school building and offer provision at another local school. We are pleased to work with Cropwell Bishop school to ensure key worker’s children can be cared for should they have no family member working from home so able to keep them there.
We understand that circumstances surrounding this pandemic are changing daily and parents may need to reinstate the care they do not need at the moment. Please remember that this childcare provision is an absolute last resort, as Boris Johnson stated last night, the best place for everyone is in their own homes. However, if you do need to access the childcare we are providing , please email head@langar.notts.sch.uk before 4.00pm and Mrs Brown will ring you to discuss your needs and arrangements.
We thank you for your cooperation and see the depletion in numbers of children a really positive sign that we are all working hard to try to stop the spread of the Coronavirus.
Firstly a thank you to you , our parents and families who have taken the guidance about childcare provision balanced with social distancing so seriously. As was emphasised in my correspondence, this provision should be a last resort as the best place for children is at home.
We welcomed four children to school today and have eight children booked in across the week. We hope this provision enables those parents to carry out their vital jobs in this difficult time.
Secondly, I wish to thank our staff. Today was a challenge as six staff had displayed symptoms meaning they had to self isolate. Our wonderful team worked tirelessly to ensure this didn’t affect the experience for the children.
We hope you enjoyed your home learning tasks today. Please bear in mind staff wellness if you aren’t getting a response on email or the blog as we have a high level of illness that would ordinarily result in absence from school.
Although the school is closing at the end of today to ensure social distancing preventing the spread of Coronavirus, you will be aware that the government stated that schools would be open to provide childcare for the children of key workers. In the early hours of this morning, we received guidance of exactly who ‘key workers’ are. I have included details taken from the guidance – the list is quite extensive. I must stress that guidance states very clearly that the safest place for your children to be is at home and if they can be cared for at home then they should be. Please take a common sense approach to this, as bringing your children back together in this way should be a last resort.
If a parent is at home or working from home, then the children should be at home.
Please follow these key principles:
• 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 childcare 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 or over 70 years of age).
• 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.
It is important that you contact the school if you feel you have no alternative but to send your child to school – please phone or email office@langar.notts.sch.uk as soon as possible expressing your interest. You will then need to follow the flow chart provided and return your slip via email by 5.00pm . You will need to indicate clearly your job title and confirm that you have spoken with your employer about the possibilities of flexible working, based on your business continuity arrangements. You will also be asked to give a clear indication of the sessions you will need for your children – childcare will be provided by school staff between usual school opening and closing times. The Early Years Learning Alliance are also making decisions about the provision they can offer so await correspondence from them regarding this.
We have received information from the Local Authority indicating that schools may be asked to join forces to provide childcare hubs. Please bear in mind that following their instruction, once numbers of children are known, your child may be directed to attend a childcare setting that is at another school. Further information will be given as and when we know.
Parents should only request a place at school if their child cannot be cared for safely elsewhere. We are going to be able to provide more support, for a longer period of time, the fewer children we have in school over the longer term because staffing levels within school will inevitably fluctuate due to illness and the need to self-isolate. Gavin Williamson, the Secretary of State for Education, suggested that no more than 10% of our school’s usual number of children should be at school in order to help with social distancing and to reduce the spread of the COVID-19 virus which means that it may become necessary for us to prioritise cases in order to keep everybody as safe as possible.
We will need your request for childcare as soon as possible so that we can make arrangements and organise staffing. Mrs Selby has generously offered to provide school meals for children who are here and request it – please indicate this in your email. Due to the very tight timescale involved and the guidance only being received in the early hours of the morning it may mean that the childcare we provide on Monday morning may not be the solution we offer in the following weeks. The Local Authority and other local schools may need more time to organise this provision.
I know this is an awful lot of information to read and take in and as ever, if you have any questions, please call and we will see if we can answer them!
The forms for completion have been sent via email.
I am sure many of you are feeling unease and uncertainty following the announcement by Gavin Williamson, Secretary of State for Education, that schools in England are to close from Friday 20th March until further notice. Schools were not informed of this announcement ahead of it being made, although we anticipated it, and we are awaiting further instruction and clarification about some of the points made in the speech.
The speech stated that care will be available in schools for children who require it due to parents working in essential roles, or because they are classed as ‘vulnerable’ by government definition. As yet the government have not provided a definition of these groups or given guidance about how that care will be provided. As soon as this is made clear we will communicate our provision with you.
We have many duties of care to the children we have here and are busy working on ways in which we can honour these whilst they are not here. As I am sure you can appreciate this is a challenge, but one that we are confident we can succeed in. We ask you for your kindness, your understanding and your patience whilst we put the systems in place to share with you on Friday – these arrangements will be in place for the duration of the closure.
The government have not set a timescale for these new measures but we are committed to keeping you updated. It is imperative that you work with us so please inform school of any recent changes to your mobile telephone number and email address, ensure you reply to all communications from school requiring information as soon as possible and look daily at the website, ideally via the School App.
In the meantime, I wish you well and thank everyone for the messages of love and support we have received.
Our staff are working very hard to gather together home learning plans and resources for children who are absent. As I am sure you can appreciate, planning for this as well as teaching the children who are still here is no mean feat!
By the end of the day children will be provided with an exercise book containing passwords they need for Purple Mash and Times Table Rock Stars - they can start accessing these as well as completing the activities I suggested this morning as soon as they like. By the end of the week, a timetable will be provided with suggested activities for children to undertake that are a mixture of subjects, topics as well as online and off. If you are currently self-isolating with your child then please arrange for someone to collect the resource and drop them through your letterbox.
We are no further forward with knowledge of school closures but feel this is the best approach to ensure children have access to education.
Today we have 27 out of 92 children absent and the number is growing!
To ensure no child misses out on the opportunity to celebrate their skills and talents we have decided to postpone awards assembly. This is a real highlight of our term and we will wait until we are in a more stable situation so we can all really enjoy it.
We have always had a comprehensive home learning area on our website and will be adding more to this over the coming days for children who are in self-isolation. Please be patient and await tasks to be added and resources to be provided - teachers are still currently in classrooms planning and teaching for the children who are here.
* Take a look at our Picture News resource this week; enjoy discussing the topic as a family and respond using the uploaded sheets or create a response sheet of your own.
* Explore the website Bill Dargue created for us about the history of Langar - this is designed for children and has external links and ideas for activities. Make a fact sheet about your favourite time period or create a timeline of local events. * Practice your times tables on Times Table Rock Stars.
* Complete as many tasks as you can from the Explore topic Learning to Learn homework.
* Immerse yourself in geography skills by following the link to BBC bitesize.
Don't forget you can do outdoor learning in your garden:
* Spend half an hour watching for birds and see if you can draw and identify them.
* Create an obstacle course and see how quickly you can go round it.
https://www.langar.notts.sch.uk/home-learning/
As you will be aware, the government announced further measures yesterday for the prevention of the spread of Coronavirus. As working parents ourselves, we understand that the implication of these measures for children and parents are enormous, but the safety and well-being of our communities is paramount and we ask you to adhere to them.
Anyone with a continuous cough or high temperature needs to self-isolate for 7 days. Anyone else living in the household needs to self-isolate for 14 days. The 14-day period starts from the day when the first person in the house became ill. All members of the household should stay at home until the 14 day period has ended.
https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/coronavirus-covid-19/
There are further recommendations for families who have vulnerable members and we are recommending for some members of our school community who fall into these categories to stay away from school. Please refer to the guidance:
We have no further information on planned closure and are following developments and announcements closely. We will keep you informed via the School App, website and email systems.
Home learning, as always, is accessible via the website (curriculum pages) and will be updated by staff with comprehensive packs for children who are at home.
We thank you for your co-operation.