Dear parents and carers,
Unfortunately, we have had to close another bubble this week. The children in 4/5S are now self -isolating and unable to return to school until 1 December. This is only the third time we have been forced to take this action since September and we are very fortunate that we are now able to switch to remote learning and maintain daily ‘live’ contact when a bubble closes.
At the start of this week, 7999 pupils and 607 staff members in Leeds were self-isolating. 119 Bubbles or year groups had collapsed and there were 103 live cases in primary schools.
As a school, we do appreciate the disruption and distress it can cause some parents when children are sent home. Our priority is ensuring that children leave the site calmly and are as positive as they can be about the forthcoming period of self-isolation. Please help us by:
- ensuring you have a back -up plan for collection if we need your child to be collected
- Keeping your child’s remote learning book, login and password to hand at home
- Informing the office if you do not have access to any device in order for your child to continue learning from home.
This remains a hugely challenging time for all of us so please do let us know if you feel you would like additional pastoral support from our two co-ordinators, Mrs Cahill and Mrs Judd.
One of the things we have noticed in school is that some of our KS2 children are finding it hard to articulate and process how they are feeling. With this mind, you may want to consider introducing the idea of a ‘virtual friend’ for your child as we know that individuals respond really well to different types of support:
Introducing Ollee – a virtual friend (ParentZone/BBC Children In Need)
Ollee is a digital friend for children aged 8-11, created by Parent Zone and funded by BBC Children in Need’s A Million & Me initiative, which aims to make a difference to children’s emotional wellbeing.
It’s designed to help children reflect on how they feel and to process their experiences with the support and help of their parents and carers – and it does this by offering them advice about a range of subjects: school, family, friends, their body, the internet and the world.
For each of these subjects, children can choose an emotion that matches how they feel about it: happy, angry, sad, confused, frustrated, stressed or worried.
Next, they can choose from a list of topics – for instance, a child who was worried about school might be able to select ‘I haven’t done my homework’ as the cause of their worry. Finally, they’ll see a page of advice about the topic, presented in child-friendly bite-sized chunks they can read then or save for later.
You can read more information and download the Ollee app here: https://parentzone.org.uk/Ollee
