Dear Parents / Carers,

I hope you are all well and managing to keep safe during these challenging times. I know many of you have been supporting and helping each other out with home learning and each other’s wellbeing whilst juggling your own work commitments and shift patterns this week. We are with you on this journey and many of the staff can relate to your situations. Well done and thank you for all your efforts!

Hub School and Critical Workers

As always, I would like to thank our Critical workers for continuing to look after us, keeping us safe and keeping things moving at this time of pandemic. Hub children have been busy accessing their learning with the support of class teachers and teaching assistants from their year groups. They even managed to join their peers in the Google Meet sessions set up at school, which they loved!

In school

Staff at school are adapting well to supporting the needs of the children right across the school in a multitude of ways: taking part in running the hub school and teaching children face to face; recording learning points and tutorials for children to access; becoming ‘IT experts’ and dealing with technical issues; finding innovative ways to mark work and give feedback to pupils; hosting Google Meet sessions with all the children in a safe and purposeful way to check in and support their learning; making phone calls home to check f anyone needs help. Some are even living out their ‘Jackanory’ dream of recording stories for children to listen to and enjoy over again throughout the week!

Home Learning

What’s going well

• Daily videos and tutorials from teachers

The daily videos for children help them set up and organise their day with a short walk-through of what is expected of them. These are pre-recorded to allow children to re-watch and refer back to. We have had some very positive feedback from parents and children around the recorded ‘tutorials’ where teachers and teaching assistants model a skill. Children are able to access these at different points during the week as it suits them, which helps when parents/carers are juggling work patterns, accessing Home Learning with siblings and also making the most of a sunny afternoon and taking a break when the weather is kind to us – which is to be encouraged!!

• Google Meet Sessions

A big thank you to all Foundation Phase parents (and grandparents!) for logging into Hwb, joining their google classroom and engaging with the Google Meet sessions. It was so lovely to see the children’s smiling faces (and some of yours!) and to share some time together, albeit virtually. Key stage 2 have had 2 sessions this week and children are beginning to ask questions about their learning and reflect on what has gone well and what they need to do to improve. These sessions are going to develop into focusing on areas of work and giving that all-important feedback to children on their progress. I have joined some of these sessions myself, and can attest to the enjoyment and positivity that arises.

• Work completed and submitted / uploaded

Nearly all children are managing to complete most of the work set by teachers. This is a huge achievement and teachers are delighted with the level of response. Remember, we value quality over quantity so don’t rush – focus on the maths and English if you are short of time, and ask questions in the Google Stream or send a message on SeeSaw if you need help.

Things we are working on

• Multiple platforms

I have had a few messages this week about navigating the different platforms that we are using across the school. Unfortunately, there is not a ‘one size fits all’ platform for education. I will put together a list of all the platforms we use and what they are for / how to log in.

• Supporting you in managing your work commitments with home learning

Please do not worry and stress about how much you are able to do with your children. The message from us is to do whatever you can manage to support your child’s learning, but the most important things are reading and sharing stories and practising some basic Maths skills, even if it’s while you’re shopping or cooking. When the children return to school, teachers are experts at identifying gaps in learning and helping them to catch up. Remember, children are learning resilience at this time, when there is so little open and they are separated from extended family. They are also learning independence, with older children particularly responsible for much of their own learning and engagement.

We have set up our home learning at Lakeside to suit as many family situations as we can and we are here at the end of the phone / email to help you if you are struggling. If you are finding that you need extra, please feel free to access the many provision on the internet eg the BBC bitesize daily sessions, Oak Academy etc.

Starting next week… ‘Working Together Wednesdays’

As a school, Covid has made it incredibly difficult to access the enrichment activities that children normally experience as part of school life, the ‘FUN’ element if you like. For example, collaborating with a group on an art or IT project, going on a school trip or having visitors into school. Working Together Wednesdays will be a way of accessing activities that bring back that element of the children’s learning. The whole school will get together on a shared project accessible to all learners (including those in the Hub School). Wednesdays will have their own schedule and menu of activities that can be completed throughout the day by siblings working together, children working with friends (digitally) and involving family and extended family. Working Together Wednesdays will include a weekly PTA challenge or activity – thanks Sadie and the PTA.

This week children shared their proud moments from 2020 and it was great to see all the things they learnt to do during lockdown. If they would still like to complete this mission, I look forward to seeing their work.

https://lakeside-primary-school-cardiff.primarysite.media/media/mrs-mitchells-mission-1

All work sent in will be shared in a slide show next week.

Next week, Working Together Wednesday will be based around Winnie the Pooh (it’s Winnie-the-Pooh day on Monday 18th January). I have attached some information (see "letters") to get you all thinking!

Governors

Thank you to those of you who applied to be a parent governor at Lakeside. I can confirm that we have had 6 nominations so will be going to a ballot however Governor Services have asked us to suspend the ballot until we can run an election in a Covid safe way.

Best wishes and stay safe everyone!

Rachel Mitchell