Dear Parents/Carers,

Welcome to Wednesday ! 

Please make sure you read/watch the Seesaw announcements each day.

Establish a written timetable for each day and the week so you have route map through the day/week (a visual timetable is good as well for younger children). Realistically you will do work for the morning and then other activities in the afternoon.

Please get outside today (if work/time allows) and explore, watch, listen, smell and enjoy, have a break and do some forest school, go for a walk or just enjoy being outdoors. 

1. Emotional cup (attached) - gives a very small insight into emotional thinking. 

2. Giraffe monitor (attached) - helpful tips on managing behaviour/attitudes/situations. 

Music therapy - 'proper' music therapy is a professional job that is highly qualified. At home 'music therapy' means putting calm music on (or exploring music yourself using whatever you have but with a purpose), it about listening, breathing and finding calm. 

Colouring -  is a calming activity. you don't have to use a colouring book as a piece of paper and a pencil is a good start, take the pencil for a walk all over the page then colour each area differently and add a pen/pencil mark making idea over the top. 

3. Thinking ahead 

In school we are already thinking ahead to the children's return but we also have to plan for other things. 

Half term will be with us soon and were can all have a well deserved break but you also need to plan getting learning back 'up and running' (better to write it down now and enjoy half term) as lots of people are reaching the tolerance level. We will plan some work after half term that allows for children to explore a bit more and make it practical (without the need for too many resources). Though we also have some lovely stories of children who are really keen and enjoying home learning. 

After half term there may be more pressure on return to work or tolerance levels of having children at home. Every job is perceived to be a 'key worker' role but we make the decision not an employer and we take each case on it's individual merits. We are also very strict on people using the service properly (if we discovered people were at home not working, when they said they were,  then we would withdraw ALL offers of support and they would not be reinstated). 

4. 'Did you know' - 

- Not all of our teachers work full time yet through all this they have 'volunteered' to work the times they don't so they can monitor Seesaw and respond to children. 

- Despite some mis-information in the national press schools are not closed, teachers are not sat at home on full pay and this is harder to manage than being in school. Teachers are entitled to half a day of planning, preparation and assessment time each week but this is being managed by themselves at the moment (which probably means they aren't taking it !). 

- None of the staff in school or at home have been difficult in any way and everyone has 'stepped up, stepped forward and gone the extra mile' - even though we don't have everyone in school all of the time, so we can keep everyone safe, some people still feel guilty about not being here. We are fortunate to have such a dedicated, hard working team.

Have a good day and enjoy the outdoors. 

Best wishes

Mr Batstone