School Update 25th March
25th March
Dear Parents, Carers, Governors and friends of Instow,
This email comes with great thanks to those who are working to keep our front-line services going and to those of you working hard to keep your children safe at home and to link up with your Seesaw or Tapestry account for your child. Remember to make an Easter garden at home and share a photo of it on your Seesaw or Tapestry account! Check our website for the information I sent out last week on Ways of Keeping in Touch, which gives you all an email address to write to, with learning questions to your child’s class teachers.
Apart from working with the DfE and headteachers across North Devon, I have been learning the wonders of the Houseparty App with friends in London and the Zoom App for our staff to meet together remotely too! Our dog Woody, is bewildered but very happy that he has humans around the house!
Please read the links I have provided here if your child is attending school during this period of time. We haven’t got to wearing masks yet, but who know what may change for us all. We have all made significant changes in the past week! There are social stories on our Parents and Carers page on our website that may help you to explain the current situation if your child has questions or is upset.
Our teaching teams who are in school this week have run some super activities for the handful of children attending and we are still enjoying Mrs Guymer’s dinners too! We hope you are all joining in with Joe Wickes at 9.00 each morning on YouTube - we are!
Everything feels a little odd I know, for all of us and we would be planning to judge the Easter Gardens; hold our Easter Egg Raffle and enjoy a church service this week, as well as closing for a well-earned Easter break. All of these activities you could do at home - so long as there are eggs for everyone in the end!! No tears please - you are all too precious to us!
At the moment we are aiming to try and follow Government guidelines and continue with emergency child care in school over the originally set break, so that frontline workers can still attend their jobs. If you need this help and no-one at home can look after your children, please complete the Google form, found on Latest News on our website. www.instowcps.co.uk
Make sure you are logging on to Seesaw as your child’s teachers will be happy to hear from them. We will also try to keep in touch in other ways with you as the impending weeks progress.
Our website - Latest News will also have information for you, so if anyone is asking you, they need to check their emails first, or go to our school website.
We are holding a remote staff meeting tomorrow to look at longer term planning over the coming weeks and if anything affects or supports your child, we will ensure to inform you.
In the meantime, enjoy the lovely weather and do share social distancing games with us on Seesaw or Tapestry! If you need to ask me a question please email admin@instowcps.co.uk.
If friends in our school are saying that they haven’t received this email, please direct them to the website or to email the admin email (above) and we will check their connections. Emails and mobile numbers do change and these may need updating, which Mrs Slater will be happy to do.
Love from Mrs Knight, Governors and staff.
Guidance on implementing social distancing in education and childcare settings
We have published new guidance on how to implement social distancing in education and childcare settings. This guidance also gives advice for individuals in vulnerable health groups:
It is important to read this alongside the overall guidance for social distancing: