Fairfields Primary School

Dear parents and carers, 

We have reached the end of another week at school with many things to celebrate. 

The children really enjoyed the drama workshops on Thursday this week.  These were provided by Proteus Theatre and the children all engaged really well. 

The pupils in Foundation Stage and Year 1 also enjoyed their viewing of the Proteus Pantomime.   

Thank you to everyone who donated money to Children in Need and also the Royal British Legion’s Poppy Appeal.  As a school we raised the following totals for these worthy causes: 

£449.04 for Children in Need  

£179.29 for the Poppy Appeal 

Thank you to everyone who helped to create our beautiful playground poppy! 

This is a wonderful symbol of how we can pull together during this challenging time.

 Parents Meeting 

You may remember in June we asked parents to complete an accessibility questionnaire for the school.  There was a great response to the survey and the results can be found by clicking here.   

The main points that we want to discuss further are: 

1. How can we adapt our building to make in more accessible for our community?  Are there funding sources available to us to enable us to do this? 

2. How can we improve communication around how we manage incidents of racism or bullying in the school? 

The Governors and I would now like to hold a meeting to discuss some of the findings and to develop a plan for the next three years to make our school more accessible.  This meeting will take place next Tuesday at 6pm via Zoom.  The meeting will last approximately 30 minutes and would love to see as many people there to help us work on a plan for the whole community.  This can include non-parents, including members of the local neighbourhood.   

The Zoom ID for this event is:  929 9206 2670 

As this is an open meeting, there will not be a passcode although attendees will be noted. 

 COVID Update

We are acutely aware of the rise in positive COVID cases in our local schools.  For this reason we will be sending home packs for every child to ensure that we are prepared for individual, small groups and whole year group isolation.  The pack will include further details of what will happen in the cases where: 

A – The whole year group needs to isolate due to direct contact with an infected person. 

B- A small group of children need to isolate due to contact with an infected person or that they have been advised to shield by a medical professional. 

In both cases, pupils will need to have access to a device to watch videos, take part in quizzes and activities.  Please could we urge anyone who does not have access to the internet or a device for each child to contact us as we may be able to help. 

We have also found a way of using SCOPAY to provide food vouchers for parents of children who are isolating and who are experiencing financial difficulties.  Again, please let us know in either of the cases if you need support.   

You can contact Terri Hope through the school office.  She is very discrete and will work out a plan to support you during the period of isolation.  Please also let us know if you are struggling with using Zoom as we can arrange to give you an informal training session in the playground next week. Please note that currently, only the person who has been in contact with the infected person needs to isolate and not any other members of the household.  This is may change as time goes on and cases rise in Basingstoke.

The Government have made it very clear to all schools that we need to continue education throughout any period of isolation.  The expectations in terms of testing this year, pupils’ performance in these tests and the criteria we assess pupils against, have not been adjusted and so we must work together to ensure that children in our school do not miss any further learning.   

We know that during currently there are many things which are happening which are out of our control.  As a school we are working hard to show compassion for one another and feel supported by members of our school community.  We wanted to say thank you to everyone who has taken time to say thank you to members of staff as this really does make a difference. 

Sometimes we can forget that some staff members can also experience anxiety upon hearing that cases are rising in the local area.  As school staff we are unable to work from home, keeping our families safe and so we must instead manage our own personal emotions. 

Please can we ask that any concerns are raised with us directly and not via social media.  Use of social media to voice informal complaints is damaging and hurtful and we are unable to respond to them.  Please instead, email, call or use the guestbook on the website so that we can find a solution to your concern however minor you may feel it is. 

 Happy Diwali

Finally, we wanted to say happy Diwali for this Saturday.  We will be talking about the festival of Diwali in our assembly on Wednesday next week.  Please can we ask for any photographs of celebrations to be emailed to admin@fairfields.hants.sch.uk so that we can share real life experiences. 

Thank you again for your continued support and have a wonderful weekend!

Best wishes

Miss Kelly Dillon

Headteacher