Latest News

• Return to school

  Mon 22 Feb 2021

  Dear Parents and Carers,

  Following the latest Welsh Government guidance, Foundation Phase children (Nursery – Y2) will return to school during the week of the 22^nd February.  The details stating the day that your child will be returning to school, are listed in the grid below. New Nursery starters will join us on the second week back to give everyone the chance to settle back in.

  Please note, there will be no catering provision on site so all children will need a packed lunch. 

  	Monday 22nd	Tuesday 23rd	Wednesday 24th	Thursday 25th	Friday 26th
  In School	Wellbeing Class to return FP staff in school (health and safety updates).	Y2 return to school	Y2 in school Rec and Y1 return to school	Y2, Y1 and Rec in school Nursery return to school	All Foundation Phase children are in
  Hub Provision (for critical worker childcare) 8.30-3.30	Continues for children Nursery-Y6	Continues for children in Nursery, Rec, Y1 Y3-Y6	Continues for Nursery Y3-Y6	Continues for Nursery Y3-Y6	Continues for Nursery Y3-Y6
  Home Learning	Continues for children N-Y6	Continues for children in Nursery, Rec, Y1 Y3-Y6	Continues for Nursery Y3-Y6	Continues for Y3-Y6	Continues for Y3-Y6

   

  IT IS VITAL THAT ALL PARENTS AND CARERS WEAR FACE MASKS WHEN DROPPING OFF AND COLLECTING THEIR CHILDREN, AND IF THEY COME INTO THE SCHOOL GROUNDS

  Please do no drive onto the school site when dropping or picking up Hub children; please remember that the road will be closed to traffic between 8.30 and 9.30 am and between 3.00 and 4.00 pm.

  Staggered start and finish times will be the same as before Christmas, these are listed below;

  Year Group	Drop off	Gate/Door	Pick up	Gate/Door
  Morning Nursery	9.15 am	Nursery playground	11.30 am	Nursery playground
  Afternoon Nursery	1 pm	Nursery playground	3.15 pm	Nursery playground
  Reception	8.45 am	Blue Gate/ FP Playground Door	3 pm	Blue Gate/ FP Playground Door
  Y1	8.55 am	Blue Gate/ FP Playground Door	3.10 pm	Blue Gate/ FP Playground Door
  Y2	9.05 am	Blue Gate Through 2P gates	3.20 pm	Blue Gate Through 2P door
  Wellbeing Class	9.30 am	Blue Gate / Wellbeing Entrance	2.30 pm	Foyer main entrance

   

  • Attendance: All pupils in the Foundation Phase, should return to school on their given day, unless they have a medical/health reason. If your child has been shielding, please seek medical advice as to whether they should return to school

   

  • Hub provision for critical worker children

  Children attending KS2 Hub provision, can be dropped off at the KS2 entrance, and picked up from the Dragonfly room (which is the first classroom on the ground floor just past the KS2 foyer), between 3-3.30pm. (This allows for some families to pick up Foundation Phase children first).

  Children attending Nursery Hub provision, will be dropped off and picked up at the Nursery playground.

  Children attending Foundation Phase Hub provision on Monday 22^nd and Tuesday 23^rd will be dropped off and picked up at the main foyer.

  • Working Together Wednesdays

  Thank you so much to those who have already engaged with our Ancient Egypt Working Together Wednesday and sent in photos, videos and pieces of work.  The PTA Hieroglyphs Trail will remain available in the local area over the weekend, in case you haven’t had a chance to do it yet, and obviously the activities will remain on the web site for whenever you want to access them.

   

  There won’t be a Working Together Wednesday next week as it is Half Term, but as it is Chinese New Year today (Friday 12^th February) Mrs Williams has recorded a special story for you  https://lakeside-primary-school-cardiff.primarysite.media/media/chinese-new-year-story

  Fair Trade Fortnight starts on 22^nd February, so Working Together Wednesday on the 24^th February will be about Fair Trade.  Lakeside has a very special relationship with a school in Lesotho, Africa (St Gerard’s School), so some of the WTW activities will be inspired by this.  There will be stories, art from Mrs Goddard, a PTA challenge and another list from Mr Carey.  

  • Home Learning and Seesaw activities in Foundation Phase: Children will be able to upload any work until Sunday 14^th February and then the activities will be archived.  Teachers will respond to any work uploaded up until Friday 12^th February at 4.00pm.  Any work uploaded after this time will be responded to after half term.  The Home Learning planners will be available until Sunday evening. (14^th).

  Please note that your child does not need to bring in the Home Learning books that they have been working in whilst at home.

   

  • Please could Foundation Phase children return any chrome books that they borrowed from the school.

• Parentmail 5.2.21

  Mon 08 Feb 2021

  Dear Parents and Carers,

   

  I have a few updates for you with regard to a return to school for Foundation Phase pupils. More information to follow next week.

   

  Return to school

  Following the minister’s announcement today regarding pupils’ return to school after Half Term, Cardiff LA will now be drawing up guidance for schools regarding the detail of what the return will look like.  The information we have been given today is as follows:

   

  Foundation Phase (Nursery to Year 2)

  • All Foundation Phase children will return to school during the week of the 22^nd February.  This will be staggered across the week with all children attending by Friday 26^th February. 
  • Staggered start and finish times will be the same as before Christmas as will the year group bubble arrangement. 
  • There will be no catering provision on site so all children will need a packed lunch.
  • The Foundation Phase hub provision will be in place all of the week beginning the 22^nd February for critical worker childcare.

   

  Key Stage 2

  • The Hub for Critical Worker children will remain in place for KS2 pupils. 
  • Remote learning will continue as it is until a date for the return of KS2 pupils has been set by Welsh government.
  • We have been advised that the earliest date for this will be 8^th March.

   

  Working Together Wednesdays

  Thank you so much to those who have already engaged with our Storytelling Working Together Wednesday and sent in photos, videos and pieces of work.  The PTA story trail will remain available in the local area over the weekend, in case you haven’t had a chance to do it yet, and obviously the activities will remain on the web site for whenever you want to access them.

   

  Next week’s Working Together Wednesday is all about Ancient Egypt.  The Egypt Centre in Swansea brings us videos and activities and our usual activities will be available: a story from Mrs Williams, an art class from Mrs Goddard, a PTA challenge and a list from Mr Carey.  

   

  Big Schools’ Birdwatch

  Thank you so much to all who took part in this, especially as it was on top of your Working Together Wednesdays activities!  I hope that you enjoyed birdwatching with your children.   By far the most frequent visitor to our gardens was the robin – probably encouraged by all the lovely bird-feeders you made after watching Miss Crompton’s videos. 

   

   

   

   

  Critical Workers

  Thank you to all of you who are involved in administering vaccinations, as well as continuing to care for those who are suffering in hospitals and in the community.  You are doing a super job and we continue to thank you for all your hard and important work.

   

  Wishing you a safe and pleasant weekend,

   

  Rachel Mitchell

  Headteacher

   

• Parentmail 29.1.21

  Tue 02 Feb 2021

  Dear Parents / Carers

  Return to school

  The first minister presented an update today about the situation in education in Wales.

  Pupils will not return to school until after Half Term, but if infection rates continue to fall the youngest pupils will start to return to primary schools from 22^nd February. Following this, there will be a phased return for older pupils.

  Minister for Education, Kirsty Williams, gives assurance that she will provide timely information to allow parents and schools to prepare for the return. Please also be assured that I will pass on any further information as and when I receive it. As usual, it’s an ever-changing situation, but we will try to keep on top of it! Thank you for your patience and understanding.

  Home learning

  Thank you all for your continued support for your children during home learning. Our engagement levels are very high, both in attendance at the Google Meet sessions and in completing tasks set by teachers. We continue to take feedback on board and look to addressing things that need tweaking.

  What’s going well

  • Live Sessions with Google Meet - we have had a tremendous response to the Google Meet teaching sessions. One of the main messages I have received from staff, parents and pupils is how much they enjoy the face to face sessions. This has improved their confidence in learning and their understanding of the tasks set. Please can you make sure children are appropriately dressed for the live sessions and are ready to learn, ie have any equipment ready and are not finishing breakfast etc. Thank you

  • KS2 drop in sessions and staying on after the inputs by teachers have been positive. Pupils are taking advantage of the drop-in sessions to ask questions and are re-visiting the recorded live sessions to refresh their understanding and consolidate their skills.
  • Recorded tutorials – these are having a great impact on the work levels of younger children in particular, where they can see their teacher or teaching assistant modelling a lesson.
  • Submitting allocated work - we have a huge amount of work submitted every week of a very good standard through both Google Classroom and SeeSaw. Thank you for supporting your children in doing this (my particular favourite this week was a graph completed by year 6 on how much chocolate I could eat in a day!).

  Things we are working on

  • We are aware that in live sessions older children often take opportunities to ‘chat’ with each other. This is completely understandable, as they can’t meet in person at the moment and miss each other. There are times that teachers will facilitate a discussion and times they will need the children to be listening and muted.
  • While in many cases, pupils’ work is submitted very quickly and on completion, sometimes work is submitted en masse and much later on in the week. Please, therefore, ensure that your child only submits work that teachers have allocated for submission, and that they do this as soon as it’s completed and within the week it’s been set. (I appreciate that some children will be completing work on weekends and at different times so please don’t worry if you are in this situation). Thank you.
  • In response to parental feedback about some pupils having to wait until 11am for their live session, we have now arranged for sessions to start earlier and occur simultaneously, so that pupils have less time to wait and can start their work sooner.
  • Audio feedback – it is really good for children to hear their teacher’s voice – Google Classroom has just enabled a feature to allow teachers to give verbal comments to the children rather than always written.
  • Technical problems are sometimes unavoidable, but where we can, we are addressing these speedily.

  Working Together Wednesdays

  Thank you so much to those who have already engaged with our Lakeside Winterwatch and sent in photos, videos and pieces of work. The PTA trail will remain available in the local area over the weekend, in case you haven’t had a chance to do it yet, and obviously activities will remain on the web site for whenever you want to access them.

  Next week’s Working Together Wednesday celebrates National Storytelling Week and we will be making, telling, hearing and watching all kinds of stories. We will have a special guest – Joshua Morgan (who is already known to some pupils) – who magically builds the story of the Greek myth Theseus and the Minotaur for KS2. Mrs Williams tells the story of ‘The Lion and the Mouse’, for younger children, and there will be lots of other activities, such as making story stones. I love hearing how you’ve enjoyed working together and seeing the great activities you’ve got up to – please keep it coming.

  Wishing you a safe (and dry!) weekend,

  Rachel Mitchell

  Headteacher