Fairfields Primary School

Dear Parents and carers,

 We have had a calm first week back to school/remote learning with the children and want to thank you for all of your support.

We currently have allocated 111 places for pupils in the school which equates to 27% of our school.  Our aim will be to keep things as safe as possible for both staff and children.  We will be using one classroom per year group and allocating a desk for each child.  The other teacher will be at home to enable them to Zoom to all children in their year group. 

Due to the expectation for us to have all pupils with Education Health Care Plans in school, we need the majority of our additional adults to support them. 

This is why we are being careful about the number of children we offer places to.  Over the next week, I will review how it is working across the school and also contact parents who are not using their allocated place.  I will then be able to consider offering more places but will still limit year group bubbles to 15 in total to safeguarding the Zoom teaching.

Please can we also ask that all communication with teachers is in writing via an email or a note.  Please maintain social distancing in the playground, including staying away from other pupils and staff.  This is to help keep our school as safe as possible.  We do not want to appear rude by having to remind parents of this. 

Food Hamper/Parcels

On Monday we will be providing food hampers for pupils who are entitled to free school meals.  The hampers have since been redefined as ‘food parcels’ by the government and additional guidance can be found at: https://laca.co.uk/laca-view/free-school-meals-guidance-producing-food-parcels

These will be available to collect under the canopy on Monday 11^th January between 11 and 11:30am.  This is the only time when there are no children on the playground.  Please can we ask that you collect the parcels with limited contact. 

I met yesterday with the catering company who explained what the parcel would be.  Please note that we have to pay the money we receive for free school meals to the company regardless of whether they provide a food parcel.  The government have not yet confirmed whether they will reimburse schools for vouchers and so the parcels are our only option currently.  To manage parents’ expectations with regards to the contents of the parcels- they are best described as the equivalent of an unmade packed lunch for a week. 

Please could we ask that you collect one parcel per school aged child only if you are entitled to free school meals.  This does not include the pupils in FS, Year 1 and 2 who are entitled to universal free school meals. 

The menu for children in school will be the same as last term. 

Cancellation of Testing this Year

The DFE have confirmed that there will not be SATs for Year 6 or Year 2 pupils.  They have also said that the Phonics Screening check will not take place.  Despite this announcement, we will still be conducting assessments and testing in school informally to help form our teacher assessment of the pupils.

With this in mind and with the facts that teachers are not able to fully assess pupils currently, we will be postponing Parents’ evening this term.  We will look to hold this in April following the written reports which are normally sent to parents. 

We will continue to report on assessments that have taken place in school and will be sending out the teacher assessments from last term once these have been moderated.

Homework

We have made the decision to not send homework home until all pupils return to school.  This is so that pupils at home are not unfairly disadvantaged. 

We would like parents and children to focus on reading for pleasure.  We are concerned that with the closure of the school library and restrictions in external libraries that children are not reading as often as they could.  We will be exploring online platforms similar to TTRockstars but in the meantime please make use of our subscription to the Schools’ Library Service at

 https://fairfields-hantssls.eplatform.co/

To log on to the school online library you will need the following:

Username= first name. second name 

Password = library1

You can choose up to 2 books to read online. Available through website access or by downloading the app.

Please make a note of the books your child has read or listened to.  When we return, we will send home a sheet in the homework books and will be awarding certificates to children who have read at home. 

For children in Foundation Stage, Years 1 and 2 we will also be awarding Phonics Champion certificates to children who are practicing at home. 

Please visit our website for activities: https://www.fairfields.hants.sch.uk/zoom-lessons/rwi

Devices for Zooming

The Government have made a number of promises to parents that they will be delivering devices to schools next week.  As yet we have not received the ones that we have asked for during year group isolation periods and also the allocation from September. 

We have provided a number of our old laptops to parents for their children to use and are continuing to chase the requested devices from the DFE. 

If you are still struggling at home to access the live lessons, please let us know via email and we will be able to print a pack of work for your child to complete until we receive the laptops from the government. 

 Please ensure that you have the latest version of Zoom on your device.  Please also be patient when joining the meetings and keep trying before contacting us.  It may be that the whole nation is trying to log on to Zoom at the same time!

Thank you again for the support we have received from you.

Kind regards

Miss Kelly Dillon

Headteacher