Communication 27.11.20

27th November 2020

Dear parents/carers

COVID UPDATE 27.11.20

Blended Learning

Thank you for your feedback on the Blended Learning Questionnaire. We had around 50% response from parents and of those, 80% were happy with blended learning. 82% of families saw the benefits of blended learning and 88% were able to access blended learning. 82% of our children submit their learning on Seesaw. The main barriers for parents were time, navigating Seesaw and motivating the child. We had some great suggestions and Mrs Knight has addressed the burning questions in the preparation for her presentation to parents next week.

We discussed the suggestions and questions at our weekly Zoom staff meeting this Wednesday and made a few team decisions based on your ideas. We addressed the problem of siblings having different tasks and how this was difficult for parents. Mrs Knight will address this in more detail in her presentation but basically, we thought that family learning would be really well suited here as that in itself can be a huge benefit to all involved. This is where siblings and/or other family members (including parents and grandparents) work together on a task; intergenerational learning. This could be applied to those with or without siblings at our schools. Our tasks therefore, after Christmas, will reflect on the family learning approach but those who choose to work independently can continue to do so if they wish.

Motivation will also be addressed in Mrs Knight’s presentation and she will give some ideas for prompting with questions but there is also the option of your child staying at school on Friday afternoon to complete their learning with their learning support assistant at hand. This would also address the problem of time. If you would like your child to stay at school and he/she doesn’t already then please email secretary@boskenwyn.cornwall.sch.uk or secretary@germoe.cornwall.sch.uk and Mary/Anita will pass the information on to the classteacher.

As 80% of families thought Wednesday 2nd December at 0930 would be the best time for the Zoom presentation with Mrs Knight, this is what we have gone for. Mrs Knight will record the presentation and you will be able to watch it at any time after the live one. A link for this will be sent via personal email early next week.

Coats and water bottles

Another reminder from staff that children need to bring in a coat and water bottle every day please

Last day of term

The last day of term will be Friday 18th December. Children will finish at their usual Friday time. There will be no provision after 1pm as school will close at this time and there is no expectation for a blended learning task to be completed this afternoon. We return to school on 4th January 2021.

Parental permissions

Our children are excited about their Christmas performance and have asked if they can not only sing their songs but make music videos to go with them. This is fantastic and I personally can’t wait to see them. We are however, putting them all together and making one video for each school. These will be posted on our school websites and on the closed Facebook pages for the Federation, FROGS and FOBS. Some of you may not want your child to be featured online so we have revised our permissions slip and this will be sent to you via email on Monday. If we don’t receive a returned permission slip then your child will NOT be featured in the video so please make sure you return it via email if you want them included.

Governor vacancies

We have a couple of vacancies for Foundation Governors on our Governing Body and one vacancy for a co-opted Governor. If you are interested in becoming a school governor and would like some more information then please contact our chair of governors Dr Russ Monhemius on rmonhemius@boskenwyn.cornwall.sch.uk

Retweet for Years 3 and 4

Years 3 and 4 at both of our schools have been studying and modelling the work of the artist Patrick Brill OBE, better known by his pseudonym Bob and Roberta Smith. He’s a popular British, contemporary artist, writer, musician and keynote speaker. Mr Height tweeted the artwork of our children last week and Bob and Roberta Smith retweeted it…what an achievement! Well done years 3 and 4.

Blackbird Pie Magasine

Please click on the link below for the Christmas edition of Blackbird Pie, the Cornwall What’s on for familes…

https://blackbirdreads.turtl.co/story/cornwallchristmas2020/

As always, if you have any questions about any of the content of this communication then please email me on head@germoe.cornwall.sch.uk.

Have a lovely weekend

Paula Blackburn