Dear Parents & Carers,

 

We are nearly there… Half term is on the horizon!

I do not underestimate the pressures you must be at home trying to juggle home learning with family life and your own work commitments.  The staff team here are full of admiration for you and count ourselves lucky to have such amazing families within in our school community.

Wow! Looking at the outfits the children have been wearing in school along with the pictures you have sent in from home it is clear we certainly know how to express ourselves!  During next week, we will release a photo montage of everyone who has taken part.  Look out for this on our school website.  Please be assured only photos of the children will be used – no names will be included.  If you still need to send a photo in, please do this using the office2@yaptonschool.org email address by midday on Monday.

We have really enjoyed seeing the work the children have completed at home.  Highlights include poems, stories and maths work as well as more creative pieces like art and crafts and dances.  These are going to be uploaded onto the school website in a new section in our Remote Learning tab.  Look for the ‘Home Learning Gallery’ in the Spring 2021 section.

This year’s Safer Internet Day is on Tuesday 9th February.  In these unusual times where we are needing to rely on a range of methods of virtual communication, we all need to be reminded on the importance of staying safe online and the ways we can do this.  I have attached two online safety guides for you to look at as a family.

Thank you to the families who sent in their ideas for road names for the new housing development in North End Road.  These have been received by the developers and those in Arun District Council who will be making the final decisions.  Let’s hope some of these suggestions will be used.   If they are, we will be able to share the news with you.

Responding to feedback from families and staff, we are revising our home learning provision.  Further details of this will be shared next week.  Every school is approaching the demands of remote learning in a different way.  Here at Yapton, we currently have 41% of our children in school with us.  Our teachers are teaching their class each day as well as providing the online learning on Google Classroom and the feedback required.  We therefore do not have teams of teachers to be able to share the workload.  It has been great to see so many of you coming to school to collect additional exercise books for your children to use.  If your children only have a few pages left in their books, please let us know and we can organise new ones to be collected.

Please find attached our prayer for February.  As we approach the season of Lent, the words of the prayer encourage us to think about how we should live our lives.

Don’t forget Friday 12th February is an INSET day.  As school will be closed there will not be any learning set on Google Classroom on this day.

Looking at the weather forecast, we may have some snow over the weekend.  If adverse weather conditions mean the school has to be shut, we will let you know using ParentMail and Twitter.  We will only contact you if the school is going to be shut.  Any Zoom meetings planned will be rescheduled.

Please remember we are here to help.  The office2@yaptonschool.org email address is regularly checked by the Senior Leadership Team.

Have a lovely weekend.

 

Take care

Kim Huggett