Monday 1st March
Dear Parents/Carers,
I am writing to follow up my brief correspondence from Wednesday last week, and to give you a broad outline
of our plans for the reopening of school.
As you know, all children are now expected back in primary schools from Monday 8th March.
Following a successful return in September 2020, where it was lovely have all of our children in the classrooms, and they clearly enjoyed being back in routine, we were able to review our safety measures & procedures and have been able to use this to put together our plans for 8th March.
I would ask that you read this letter carefully, and also read our Risk Assessment on our school website, to reassure yourself about your child returning to school. We will continue to do everything humanly possibly to keep all of our children safe. Many of our staff team have now been vaccinated, which helps to prevent infection and forward transmission of the virus. Rapidtesting is now a part of our staff team’s safety measures twice a week. This means that staff are using Lateral Flow Device tests (asymptomatic testing) to help identify anyone who may be infectious but do not have Coronavirus symptoms. On top of this, the numbers of cases of Coronavirus nationally have dropped significantly, with this weekend having the lowest daily figures for some months. Nevertheless, we continue to be vigilant in all we do and ask that you support us in this.
Preparation at home: Firstly, we ask that you prepare your child to come back to school, whether this is by using a visual timetable, talking to them about when they return and reminding them of their teachers’ names, or for some children, reminding them about social distancing and what they can do to help keep themselves and other safe.
Following National Guidance: Children must not be sent in to school if;
• they have one or more Coronavirus symptoms
• a member of your household (including someone in a support bubble) has Coronavirus symptoms
• they have had a positive Coronavirus test
Please note that the guidance states:
For any of the above, your child must isolate at home and not attend school for at least 10 days after:
• the start of their symptoms
• the test date if they have had a positive test
The isolation period includes the day the symptoms started and the next ten full days. Your child could return on day 11 provided they are well.
We will not routinely be taking the temperature of pupils in school as Public Health England have advised schools that this is an unreliable method for identifying Coronavirus. However, if they do feel hot or seem unwell, please keep them at home.
Transport: We are liaising with transport this week to ensure that children will continue to travel in their pathway bubbles. If your child travels to school on transport and wears a disposable face mask, please remember to send an additional mask for the homeward journey. If they wear a reusable face mask, they will be given a sealable bag to put it in during the day.
We have been liaising with transport about the start and finish times for children again. These will be
Willow/Cherry (Frogs, Stoats, Hedgehogs, Robins, Squirrels, Deer, Hares, Dormice, Rabbits)- Arrival 8.45am Leaving school 2.25pm
Chestnut (Owls, Beavers, Badgers)- Arrival 9am Leaving school 2.40pm
If you bring your child by car, please can I ask you to stay in your car. It is important that we keep our whole school community safe and do everything possible to prevent transmission of Coronavirus. We also ask that you do not come on to the school site at other times during the day unless you have a specific appointment with a member of staff.
For any child who spits, or uses saliva as a sensory stimulant, we will encourage them to wash hands more frequently.
I want to reassure you that our cleaning schedule is thorough in all areas of the school and staff use points throughout the day to clean surfaces and equipment.
Our children will remain in their class groups with minimal mixing during the day (limited to some shared outdoor spaces only). This helps us to minimise contacts and reduce the risk of transmission of Coronavirus.
Ventilation & Uniform: Children will be expected to wear school uniform again when they return on 8th March.
All children should be wearing clean clothes each day to minimise any spread of infection. If you have difficulties washing uniform overnight and then do not have a clean set, please do not worry. We would rather your child come in clean clothing, and will understand if, on occasion, this is not school uniform. Priority is that the clothing is clean. We also appreciate that some children will have grown since before Christmas when they may have last worn uniform. If they have grown out of uniform and you have not been able to replace them due to lockdown, again, we understand and please just send them in clean home clothes.
One of the key safety measures required of all schools is to ensure that there is effective ventilation in classrooms. For this reason, when it is cold weather, please ensure that your child comes to school with extra layers ie a fleece or extra jumper.
I hope this letter helps to provide clarification about the ways in which we plan to bring all children back on 8th March. If you have any questions or queries, please do not hesitate to call the school office this week and ask to speak to a member of the senior leadership team.
We look forward to seeing your child again next week,
Regards
Sarah Osborne (Headteacher)
Dear Parents/Carers,
As you may be aware, the Prime Minister announced on Monday this week that all children should return to school on Monday 8th March.
For many parents this will provide some relief, to get back to normality, however, we recognise that for many it may also cause some anxiety.
Myself and the leadership team have begun to review the Department for Education's guidance in full and in the next few days should then be in a position to confirm the full details of our arrangements. The safety of our children and staff team will obviously be our foremost priority but rest assured that we will also be prioritising the experiences and wellbeing of our children to make sure that their return to school is as smooth and as enjoyable as it can be.
Our remote learning provision will continue beyond 8th March for those students prevented from returning in person for Covid related reasons.
I will be back in touch as soon as we have had a chance to bring our plans together and look forward to seeing many more of our Oaklands children on site again soon.
Regards
Sarah Osborne (Headteacher)
Half Term Break
Dear Parents/Carers,
We are now at the end of this half term and what another strange half term it has been. For those children who have been attending school during this lockdown, there have been many changes but they have all coped extremely well.
Schools have been asked to continue their role with Contact Tracing for the first weekend of the Half term break. We do need to know if your child becomes symptomatic and has a positive Coronavirus test. Therefore, please can I ask you to contact us by calling 07742 800987 or emailing the school office office@oaklands.leicester.sch.uk if your child has any of the Coronavirus symptoms or has a positive Covid-19 test during the first weekend of half term. Symptoms are:
If anyone in your household has any of these symptoms, you must all isolate and that person must get a Covid 19 test.
We know that many parents/carers have done a wonderful job to support children’s learning at home, whether this is by watching the Oaklands You Tube videos, learning valuable life skills or following remote learning plans for developing specific academic skills. We would very much like to share any of your Top Tips to support children with learning at home. If you have done anything that has worked particularly well, an activity, using specific strategies or resources or anything else that has helped your child cope during the time away from school, we would love to hear about it to share with other parents. None of us have all the answers, and at Oaklands we are always learning, so by sharing these Top Tips, it could just help another family to support their child when they need a new idea or approach. Please send Top Tips to office@oaklands.leicester.sch.uk ‘My Top Tip is….’
Next week is half term. If you require any support from our family support worker, Dhrupti Champaneri, she continues to provide advice to parents and can be contacted on 07842601349 (Wed/Thurs). If you have any Safeguarding concerns, you can speak to one of our Designated Safeguarding Leads on 07742 800987 or call the Duty and Advice Service on 0116 4541004.
Other useful numbers for half term:
Samaritans 116 123- Free from any phone
Crisis Team 0808 800 3302
(24hr mental health & wellbeing support line)
On Monday 22nd February, the Prime Minister is due to make an announcement on the ‘road map’ for the easing of restrictions and the return of children to schools. As yet, we as school leaders have no indication of what this may look like and therefore will be contacting all parents after that, in the first week after half term, to give information about what the Government’s plans mean for our school. We all look forward to when we can welcome the entirety of our Oaklands children back into school. However, as we have said throughout the pandemic, our priority has always been the safety of our school community so we will continue to work together as we respond to any further guidance from the Government.
We wish you all a Happy Chinese New Year and hope that you have a restful half term.
Stay safe,
Regards
Sarah Osborne (Headteacher)
28.01.2021
Dear Parents & Carers,
From 1-7 February 2021, we’re taking part in Place2Be’s Children’s Mental Health Week. This year’s theme is Express Yourself. Place2Be has created activities and resources to help children (and adults) to explore the different ways that they can share their thoughts, feelings and ideas. There are lots of resources on the Children’s Mental Health Week website that you can use with your child at home; including activity ideas, tips for parents and carers, and an online assembly which will be available from Monday 1 February.
Visit https://www.childrensmentalhealthweek.org.uk/ to find out more. Your child’s class teacher will also be sharing some ideas with you via Class Dojo or email.
Please feel free to send in any photos of your child ‘expressing themselves’. Can they express themselves through Movement? Art? Writing? Can they even dress up to express themselves? Do they have a favourite dressing up costume or outfit? They really can dress to express!!
Thank you for your support.
Take care
Sally Bott
Assistant Head Teacher
Monday 25 January 2021
Dear parents
I hardly need to tell you that this is a challenging time for parents across our communities. We recognise the many pressures you are facing. For some, these pressures are even greater because access to education for their children is not as straightforward as we all wish it could be. The key message from government is to keep your child at home if you possibly can, even if you are a critical worker.
Leicester City schools are trying their very best to enable their pupils to attend. They are taking all the necessary steps to manage the risks for children and staff and to reduce transmission of the virus. However, there are many factors they are having to weigh up daily in assessing their ability to offer full-time on-site education for pupils. This includes making sure there are sufficient staff who can be safely on-site to support the pupils in their learning and to help minimise transmission of the virus, while at the same time ensuring the school is able to deliver a rich range of remote education for the many children who are not attending.
Anywhere people meet and interact with each other is a possible source of transmission. We know that infection rates among adults are far higher than they are among children, but we have also seen that having children attend school leads to more mixing between adults, and thereby increases the rate of transmission in the community. All school and education settings continue to carefully consider how to reduce this risk and keep children and staff as safe as possible. We know that regular attendance at school is good for children’s mental health and wellbeing, as well as for their education. Nonetheless, with the current high levels of infection in the community, it is better that there are fewer pupils attending school. This will reduce repeated periods of self-isolation for pupils and staff if they are in direct or close contact with others who test positive.
In light of this, schools are looking to increase the number of children who can attend, if they can do so safely, but this needs to be balanced against the risk to pupils, their families and school staff. There are additional challenges for special schools due to the complex needs of many of their pupils, who need to have closer contact and support from staff. Many of these pupils find it very difficult to cope with changes in the school environment, including staff, routine and classroom changes. This also applies to some children in mainstream schools and in alternative provision. Your child’s school will discuss with you when it is the right time for your child to be attending school, considering your child’s needs and the measures the school can safely put in place.
Schools will continue to review all new national guidance and will adjust arrangements when circumstances change. We encourage you to keep in contact with your child’s school, so they can work with the whole school community and plan the best way forward to have pupils more consistently back to school. I can assure you that we are doing our absolute best to bring all pupils back to school as soon as it is safe to do so, but not before.
With best wishes
Martin Samuels
Strategic Director, Social Care and Education Leicester City Council
Dear Parents/Carers,
I do hope that you are all well and staying safe. We value the regular communication that we are having with our Oaklands families, and enjoy receiving photos and videos of activities that children have been doing at home.
I am exceedingly grateful to all parents who have expressed their support for the school at this very difficult time. We are committed to keeping our school community safe and it is only through working together that we can do this. As you will be aware, we have not been able to avoid members of the school community catching the virus and we all understand how serious this can be. I am sure that many of you, along with our staff team, have had friends, family or loved ones who have contracted Covid-19, and in the worst of circumstances, we have lost them to this terrible disease. At this time of national lockdown, when we are all conscious of the risks to everyone around us, we have been grateful that you are supporting us by ensuring that contacts are kept to a minimum.
As we now seem to be approaching the height of this pandemic, I wanted to touch base with you all and assure you that our team will continue to work with you, supporting all of our Oaklands families, and responding to the individual learning needs of your child at home.
Our teachers are keen to build on the remote learning activities that they have provided for you. During the regular phone calls with you, they are able to suggest ideas for activities that will best suit learning in the home environment, using resources that you may have at home, or for some learners, providing additional paper-based activities. There are now a wide range of learning videos on our school website in the Curriculum section that can be accessed daily, and where activities are repeated regularly, we know that skills and understanding are more likely to become embedded. Please do use these valuable resources to join in, sign and have fun at home alongside your child! We are not expecting parents to be teachers, and certainly do not want parents to feel any pressure, but simply explore the activities and enjoy trying things together.
If you require any support from our family support worker, Dhrupti Champaneri, she continues to provide advice to parents and can be contacted on 07842601349 (Wed/Thurs).
We are encouraged by the amount of people nationally who have already had a Covid-19 vaccination, as we all know that this will help in the long term to protect individuals and potentially bring the virus to an end. In the meantime, it is essential that we all continue to follow the NHS advice and socially distance.
If you have any questions about the vaccine, please do let us know and we would be happy to provide you with the information. We are able to contact Public Health to answer any questions that our school community have. There is more information about the vaccine on the NHS website: https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/coronavirus-covid-19/coronavirus-vaccination/coronavirus-vaccine/
Please do continue to check Weduc and the school website for any updates. If you have not yet joined us on Weduc, this is the key way in which we send out information, so please contact the office to help set that up; office@oaklands.leicester.sch.uk.
If you are not on Twitter, this is also a source of information and inspiration; there have been some wonderful examples of fun activities that our children have been involved in at home recently. You can find us at: @OaklandsSchool_
I would like to thank-you for your continued hard work and support during the pandemic. We hope you and your family remain safe and well,
Regards
Sarah
Sarah Osborne (Headteacher)
Blue Peter is the longest running kids TV show in the world and we are uploading videos to it that are suitable for 5-11 year olds. We have world record breaking challenges, arts and crafts, environmental videos, cooking and baking how tos, inspirational films, gaming, celebrity appearances, dance routines and music performances. We also feature ways of getting a Blue Peter badge, behind the scenes footage and extra content about our incredible presenters Adam, Lindsey, Mwaksy, Richie and Henry the Blue Peter dog.
If you think your child would be interested in this, then subscribe to https://www.youtube.com/bluepeter - (it’s obviously completely free to subscribe!) and don’t forget to watch the live programme on CBBC at 5.00pm every Thursday, or on BBC iPlayer.