Dear Parents and Carers

It has been a busy week! We have been busy finalising our plans for all staff to be able to take advantage of the LFD (Lateral Flow Device) tests that arrived this week and from Sunday, we are delighted that we will have this additional resource to help keep track of any virus in school. Whilst we are pleased to have this opportunity though, we are continuing with our very stringent cleaning measures and the ‘Hands, Face, Space’ mantra. All staff continue to wear masks outside of their bubbles and in any shared space and any parents and carers with children in school are really helping with this too. Thank you.

The work this week has been fantastic too! In and out of school, we have seen some wonderful things.  Nursery and Reception have continued their Wintery topic whilst also looking at the week’s weather (which thankfully has been diverse and, at times, extreme). Year 1 have produced some fantastic Emperor Penguin Booklets; Year 2 has seen some super Rainforest art work; Year 3 have been looking at rocks and volcanoes (including a fabulous looking volcano cake!); Year 4 have created and run some frosty ice experiments; Year 5 continue to create their fabulous Greek Myth based stories (not ALL are Greek myth based now, I will not lie) and Year 6 are carrying on with their ‘Do Spitfires really spit fire?’ WWII topic. I was lucky enough to catch a few minutes of a lesson where one of our pupils was telling the class about their Great-Great Grandfather’s time as a Prisoner of War. It was really moving in fact.

A huge thank you to all who have filled in the Parent Questionnaire set by the Bridge Mat – it is not too late if you have yet to fill it in and we would really appreciate any response. The responses that I have read today have been really useful for us moving forward and honestly appreciate you telling us anything that might help us to help you. As soon as we can, we will set timings for each year group’s live sessions, so that we are not all trying to be online and live at the same time and each week you should see, in whatever year group your child is in, an overview of the week for you to use to best plan what you might be able to manage. Please note that the message is still: whatever you can do is enough. We know just how hard this week has been; it seems a lot harder this week I think, and I know that a lot of parents, and teachers, are really feeling it. PLEASE remember that we are here to help; do get in touch if you need to.

The link for the parent questionnaire is here: https://www.bridgeschools.co.uk/Parent-Questionnaire-January-2021 

Now, this week’s assembly is about Mental Health. Next week sees Children’s Mental Health week 2021 and we are opening the week with a whole school (country!) assembly. All those in school will be logging onto listen to the Oak Academy’s assembly on Monday morning at 9am and we would love it if you were able to too. The link for the assembly is below:

https://www.thenational.academy/blog/join-our-assembly-for-childrens-mental-health-week-2021 

We also have loads of wellbeing and Mental Health Activities planned for the week – do look on Teams (Years 1-6) or Tapestry to see what you can do.

Cornwall County Council, via SUSTRANS (Sustainable Transport, the people who run walk to school week and so on), have also sent through a lot of activities that they have devised that do not require the use of a screen (hurrah!). Please see below for a link to these too (they come up in You Tube):

Video links: Primary School Playlist: http://tiny.cc/6xi8tz

Once again, if you are struggling to get online, or are finding it tricky with more than one child in the house and not enough devices, PLEASE let us know as if we can help, we will.

Thank you so much for your continued support. We miss you all. Please don’t forget to be kind to yourselves and we hope to see you soon. Even if it is not straight after Half Term (latest guidance is back to school at the earliest 8 March).;

Enjoy the weekend as much as you can and stay safe.

Kindest regards

Ms Whitlock

The RSPB (Royal Society for the Protection of Birds) are holding a National event called the Big Garden Birdwatch.

It is completely free to sign up for at the following web address https://www.rspb.org.uk/ 

They are asking people of ALL ages to count the number of birds that they see in their gardens, for one hour, over the weekend 29th Jan - 31st Jan.

All you have to do is register at the website and you can request resources either electronically or by post.

Best wishes and happy bird watching!

Dear Parents and Carers

Thank you so much for all that you have done this week in terms of making sure that pupils are accessing work, attending Live Team meetings, checking back and watching meetings if you miss the live ones, sending in work, emailing us and picking up the ‘phone if we call. We know just how challenging it all is and we have been amazed by the impressive quality of so much of the work that has been sent and uploaded. The pupils in class, whether they are here for one day or all week have been amazing too and I have seen some truly magnificent work. Year 6 today were drawing Spiderman and the ones that I have seen uploaded are SO much better than anything I could ever do. I was lucky enough to listen to some of Year 5’s story openings this morning and there was some seriously good work in there. I feel some book deals coming on…. Nursery children have been working very hard on their winter topic; Reception children have been working really hard on their winter topic and have been exploring how best to melt ice in very inventive ways. Year 2 have been writing their own version of the Slowly, Slowly, Slowly story and are doing very well indeed (my story would have been quietly, quietly, quietly, crept the mouse I think…). Year 4 made Viking Shields and this was a VERY popular activity – we saw some stupendous ones! Year 3 and Year 1 have made some super edible things this week (Year 1 did not find the penguin sadly, as he has decided to stay in Antarctica) and I have also had some really positive feedback on the orienteering that Year 3 have been doing too. One parent said that the whole family got out of the house to complete the orienteering course that was plotted around the town and that they ALL loved it. Good work all!

Once again, if you are struggling to get online, or are finding it tricky with more than one child in the house and not enough devices, PLEASE let us know as if we can help, we will.

My assembly for this week is varied (!). I talk about some news that has happened this week and I start to teach the beginning of a very catchy Cornish Song ‘Harry’s Song For Cornwall’ and I am predicting that you will LOVE it. And, you can then sing it for the rest of the week after Monday. I also decided to read a lovely book that I heard in a Nursery session this week (It’s amazing what you can hear in a school corridor). Do give it a listen next week for some (hopeful) light relief.

I wonder if I could also please ask you a favour. We would like to know how we are doing with our remote learning provision.  If you get a minute, please could you complete the questionnaire linked below. It will really help us to know if we need to tweak anything but also helps us breathe a sigh of relief if you are happy with what we are doing.  Thank you.

https://www.bridgeschools.co.uk/Parent-Questionnaire-January-2021

We miss seeing everyone in school. We cannot wait to be all together again, but for now, please take care and keep doing what you can, when you can. Don’t forget to be kind to yourself.  This is the most important thing.

>Enjoy the weekend as much as you can and stay safe

Kindest regards

Ms Whitlock

Dear Parents and Carers

They say a week can be a long time in politics. The person who coined that saying had clearly never been in lockdown or waiting for a Government announcement…

That said, it has been so lovely to see the huge amount of learning that has been flooding Tapestry and Teams this week.  I have seen SO many fabulous pieces of work and I have been lucky enough to take part in some of the many live lessons and sessions – Year 4 today all looked like they were at the Cinema which was lovely to see, and Year 6 were fantastic in their answering their quiz questions (surely ONE of the questions could have actually had the answer Gary Barlow??), and I LOVED the PE session with Year 1 yesterday. I was very impressed by the different shapes that Year 1 can get themselves into. No need for pilates there, I can tell you.

The live sessions are very much worth joining if you can (though they are all recorded too), as the connections made in these sessions are fantastic. The positive feelings that we get when we connect with others shows how much we need contact and I have to tell you – I miss it!  Last term I missed our whole school in the hall assemblies (the beginning of MARCH LAST YEAR was the last time we were all together) whereas this term I am really missing our Teams Assemblies where at least we all knew that we were watching at the same time and we all saw the Shining Stars Winners every week. These days, it is nigh on impossible to get everyone together (I still have not ruled it out though and possible live events, here we come!), so I have recorded an assembly, which will be ready to watch from Monday onwards in every Year Group’s Teams Files Page (Years 1 -6). It is in the file called Assemblies and it is in the form of a powerpoint. Do please watch it as a slide show if you get a few minutes. I am planning a more exciting one next week - don’t worry! – but the message is very definitely clear I hope: Be kind. Kindness matters. Always. Kindness makes everything so much more bearable.

My last message to you for today is just that: be kind to others, but also, please, be kind to yourselves. It Is absolutely fine not to do all of the work set. Please do what you can.  When you can. We will always make up any lost learning. Tell us if you are needing help.  We want to help, and we are here to support you.

My other last message to you today is that if you see any lost looking penguins around Wadebridge, please could you let Year 1 know. They are looking for them.

Enjoy the weekend as much as you can and stay safe.

Kindest regards

Ms Whitlock

PS Year 1 are reading the book ‘Lost and Found’ and have created some AMAZING ‘Have you seen this Penguin?’ posters. They are heart-cheering in the extreme.

Dear Parents and Carers

Thank you SO much for your support and patience this week. I feel that whilst it has been a challenging week in many ways, all of our wonderful community has pulled together so well. The quality and quantity of remote learning has been exceptional in so many cases; the live learning and story times have been wonderful; the pupils in school have been amazing and the understanding of parents to our ‘in school’ limits (given that you were thrown into this situation just as much as we were), has been so appreciated.

I know that you have received many an email this week, so I will try and keep this blog post relatively short too!

Do let us know if you are struggling to access remote learning and not in school. There are things that we can either help with or advise you to do.  Some of these options are detailed below, but we can also help in other ways.

Please also make sure that you are monitoring your child’s use of Teams. It must only be used for school and work purposes. If in doubt, do contact us.

Advice on how to use gaming console to access Teams:

If you do not have a spare device or laptop for Home Learning but have an Xbox and/or PlayStation you can use them to access Microsoft Teams.

Teams can be opened on Xbox and PlayStation. There isn’t an app that the students can add to their consoles. Instead, they are going to have to use the built-in browsers that come on the two devices.

On Xbox, it is Microsoft Edge.

On PlayStation, it is the “www” browser.

Your children will probably know how to find the browsers on their consoles, but if not, each one has a search function they can access on the home screen.

Once the browser has been opened:

•.      Type in 'microsoft teams the url bar. A prompts for teams account will appear. Your login details from school. Home screen open up.

• If you have a keyboard then you can plug it in, you will have a much easier time navigating. Otherwise, use the controller to click on the icons and buttons to navigate.

Please keep an eye on your child whilst they are using their device, (for some, it will be very tempting to access their favourite games).

Please do not hesitate to contact us at school, should you have any questions about this.

Digital Support- additional mobile data<

The DfE have announced an opportunity for schools to apply for temporary additional mobile data for certain pupils. If you know of families who would benefit from this, please liaise with them directly and follow the guidance as per the link below- it varies depending on which network they use. Please keep records of this.

The hyperlink below sets out the full details and how to apply but in summary, there is the possibility of applying for additional mobile phone data for pupils who:

• do not have fixed broadband at home

• cannot afford additional data for their devices

• are experiencing disruption to their face-to-face education

In addition, there is also the possibility of requesting mobile data increases for children who cannot attend school face to face due to being clinically extremely vulnerable or if there are restrictions preventing them attending.

If increasing mobile data isn’t a suitable option there is also the opportunity to apply for 4G wireless routers and again, full details can be found within the hyperlink below:

Increasing data allowances on mobile devices to support disadvantaged children - Get help with technology - GOV.UK (education.gov.uk)

If you need help with any of the above, please do get in touch.

Enjoy the weekend as much as you can and stay safe.

Kindest regards

Ms Whitlock

Due to tonight’s Government announcement, WPA will be closed from Tuesday 5th January to all pupils except vulnerable children and children of key workers. We will be in touch tomorrow regarding online learning.