Dear Parents/Carers,

I thought I would take this opportunity to write to you all, ahead of tomorrow’s usual newsletter.

Over the last few weeks, our school community has been responding to the challenge presented by the Covid-19 pandemic.

It’s now five weeks since the government closed all schools across the country until further notice. During this time you have all done an incredible job supporting your children in their learning and have continued to work with us.

We also recognise that your families will be challenged by lockdown in different ways. Many of you will have loved ones that you are concerned about, as well as the difficulty of getting to work and shopping for food and other essentials. Our thoughts and prayers are with all of you who are struggling at this time. Again, please let us know if we can help.

Thank you for your feedback and for bearing with us as we find our way through this unprecedented challenge. As many of you are aware, we only hear government announcements at the same time as the general public. We’ve been working very hard to respond as quickly as possible to new developments, such as holiday opening and free school meal vouchers. Inevitably, it takes time to implement any new requirements, especially when we are dependent on national schemes to deliver government initiatives.

At the moment, it's only safe to have a handful of staff and children in school each day. The time will come when it is appropriate to increase that number, and that will of course be a national decision. Our task is to make sure we are ready when the time comes. At the moment, we don’t know the timing of re-opening. It may be that re-opening will be phased for different year groups, or that children only attend part-time on a rota. As some students and staff will still need to self-isolate for longer, it’s possible that the disruption to normal routines will continue into the autumn term.

There are so many scenarios that we can’t realistically plan for them all. But we can anticipate the need to be flexible, and to quickly adapt to changing circumstances. We can’t predict the future, but we will continue to work with you to make the best decisions possible to support our children when they learn at home and when they start returning to school.

Thank you for your continued support.

Yours sincerely


Matt Condon
Headteacher

Newsletter regarding use of Zoom

Dear Parents and Carers,

At School of Christ the King we would like to keep up to date with you and your children. To do this we are using a product called Zoom for our video-calling. We will be using our school account for this, so you do not need to buy anything or create an account.

When we make our video call, we will always send you a text first before we send your child a video link via their Google Classroom. We will never email your child asking them to join a call without you knowing, and we will never ask to 'video meet' with you or your child outside our school hours which are currently 9am - 3.15pm.

To use the video link in our email just click on it. The browser window will open and the first time you use it, it will ask you to download the software. If you use a Zoom account for another reason, please make sure you log out of that account before your child uses it. This will make sure any settings that you have made in your account do not over-ride any that we have put in place to safeguard your child.

When we make the video call please make sure the computer is in a suitable place, not in a bedroom or bathroom for example and the background is clear, showing just the wall perhaps.

For your child's safety we may record our call with you. The recordings are kept on our school servers for 1 month and no-one is permitted to view them without good reason and with permission from the headteacher.

You may have read a lot about problems with video calling software. Zoom has improved its security settings recently. Our school account has settings that will limit problems with the following issues that you may have heard about:

• Zoom-bombing
• Risk of phishing
• Privacy concerns
• Recordings
• Private zoom meetings
• Inappropriate content
• Data Protection
• Poor privacy controls and security

To protect you and your child further, please:

Do not create or use an existing Zoom account for them, this will make sure that your child cannot change any of our settings.

Make sure the joining email is from our school email address, this will prevent any impact from phishing emails where people try to get you to click on a fraudulent email.

We will always make sure that there are two adults on the video call and we would like parents to be alongside when our call takes place.

There should be no inappropriate content on any of our video calls. Please contact the school if you are concerned about any of the content of the video call.

If you would like any further information, please get in touch by calling us in school.

We have texted parents in classes using this tool and we are asking parents to phone or email us to confirm that you understand and support how we are using this tool.

Yours sincerely,

Matt Condon

Headteacher

Dear Parents/Carers,

I hope you are all well and that families are staying safe and that you all had a happy Easter.

Home Learning

It’s been another great week of online learning. Some highlights are reflected in the week’s Headteacher’s awards...

Headteacher’s Awards

Reception -

• Lianater - for having a positive attitude, working hard and actively engaging with all of the tasks set.
• Callum - for using his imagination to retell his own version of the Train Ride story using his train track and dinosaurs.
• Kamil - For being really creative with his learning. I loved the hot air balloon model he made this week!
• Lily R - For working so hard at home on completing all the activities, taking such pride in her work and making a fantastic car out of recyclable materials.

Year 1 -

• Angelica - Fantastic attitude to learning at home and for her musical talents.
• Fritzhie- For a fabulous imaginative idea for her homemade rocket.
• Victor - For completing the set tasks but for also using his own initiative when learning.

Year 2 -

• Ellis -  has focused on completing his home learning pack whilst he has been unable to access the blog
• Antony  - for showing resilience during the phonic word challenge.

Year 3 -

• Harley- He has completed all activities to the best of his ability and is trying really hard with his home learning.

Year 4 -

• Missey - She has taken on every task and activity that has been set so far and has kept up such an enthusiastic attitude. She uploads her work on a daily basis and always makes Mr Prichard and Mrs Sims laugh with her comical videos. Keep it up Missey!
• Taylor - Taylor has shown great perseverance this week with his maths. In Year 4, we have moved on to using White Rose Maths and initially, the video and worksheet was causing Taylor to feel less confident and low in spirit. However, over the last few days, his attitude has been spot on and mum has recognised a huge difference to his maths work. A zoom meeting certainly helped along the way! Top work Taylor!
• Charlotte - she has been so organised with her home learning and finds the balance between work and play (something that we can all learn from). Not only has she been emailing me her work, she also gives me feedback explaining how she got on. This has helped me to plan work for the whole class! Well done Charlotte!
• Justin - He has stayed connected with everyone for the entire time that we have been away from school. He is always one of the first to say good morning and he completes all work with care and pride. He has also been working with Ella, his little sister, having fun with Gonoodle and our PE challenges. Keep being that role model Justin!

Year 5 -

• Olly and Freddie - for their positive and cheery attitudes which are shining through everything they do in the google classroom
• Mimi & Anya - for bouncing back into the classroom and getting stuck in to the work
• Anya, for her dedication to her studies every single day and for independently taking on additional learning from Yr5 as well as Hub 2. Mrs B and Mrs R have both chosen you this week!
• Jazleen, Dylan and Marta - for the outstanding effort they are consistently putting into their work including the superb holiday kindness homework
• Kristen - for sharing her fabulous dance moves
• Jayden  - for working away quietly in the background and getting his learning done. I was impressed with his imaginative and colourful alien creation he showed us on Google Meet  yesterday.

Year 6 -

• Summer, Dimitrios & Wiktoria - Well done to them for always being online first thing in the morning and being ready to learn. The work they send in is high quality. Great job!

A reminder - keeping in touch

We hope that as many children as possible can share something with their teacher through a Blog comment or email every day - even if it's just to say ‘I’ve done my work!’. All of the blogs can be found on the school website. The class emails are:

• reception@ctk.education
• year.1@ctk.education
• year.2@ctk.education
• year.3@ctk.education
• year.4@ctk.education
• year.5@ctk.education
• year.6@ctk.education
• LH.1@ctk.education (for Learning Hub 1)
• LH.2@ctk.education (for Learning Hub 2)

We hope to support you with any outstanding technical problems; please keep contacting us and we will do everything we can to solve any problems you may have.

Food Donations

We receive donations of miscellaneous food items in school from an organisation called ‘Fareshare’. Normally these are used in school by Breakfast Club and Chill Time Klub. However, during this time we would like to distribute any food we receive to families in need. If over the coming week’s you would like to be considered to receive items, please call the school office. We will prioritise due to need and contact families if/when food is available.

Ongoing Support

As always, if you need advice or support in any way please contact us. Even if we are unable to solve problems we will do our best to give advice or signpost you to other agencies.

Take care,


Matt Condon
Headteacher

Dear Parents/Carers,

I hope you are all well and that families are staying safe.

Home Learning

Please read this ‘Home Learning’ newsletter from Mr Purser. The newsletter explains what children will be doing over the holiday and also includes a list of links and online reources:

https://sites.google.com/a/ctk.education/www/home-learning/easter-home-learning

It’s been another great week of online learning. Some highlights are reflected in the week’s Headteacher’s awards...

Headteacher’s Awards

Reception -

• Lily B, Kamil, Lily R - Absolutely fantastic engagement and participation with the activities set! They have produced some fantastic work at home! Really been on it! 

Year 1 -

• Filip - Fantastic attitude to learning and trying really hard with his writing. 
• Matty - Fabulous attitude to his learning at home and a thank you for sharing his plant growing activity. 
• Justin - For cheering me up with his smiling face and again his attitude to his learning. 
• Abby - For making an amazing effort with her home learning each day at this tricky time.  Also for being very kind and considerate and remembering this month is my birthday month.

Year 2 -

• Couture - For perseverance with learning how to access home learning.

Year 3 -

• Year 3's HT award is for Freya. She has completed all tasks and gone above and beyond to create science experiments, craft projects and even her own story book! 

Year 4 -

• Marley has been engaging and completing all of the tasks that have been set. He has gone above and beyond to complete the work the best he can. His fancy dress Friday outfit for PE this morning was a lovely way to end his week.
• Serenity has put so much effort into her work this week, whilst still training with her gymnastic coaches. Her maths work has improved every day and her attitude to the tasks that have been set has been incredible. 

Year 5 -

• Jazleen, Imogen, Marta & Olly for their superb commitment to completing the work to such a high standard despite the challenges of the google classroom this week.

Year 6 -

• Angelos - he has been engaging every day and the photos of his work show that he is giving it the same attention as he does in school. 
• Oscar has set really high standards with his home learning. He has taken time to complete his tasks to the best of his ability and this has shown in the quality of his work. He's clearly enjoyed it too! 

Feedback from Parents
Can I thank all of you for your support over the last two weeks. Here is some lovely feedback which I wanted to share:

‘I just wanted to say a big thank you for all the amazing effort you are all putting into homeschooling. Every teacher I have had to contact has got back to me straight away and been amazing. All the work sent everyday is great and fun. You're an amazing school full of very caring adults. I’m so glad I chose this school for my children. In a time of crisis I don’t think there is a better school out there. Thank you so much’.

and...

‘The clap tonight was for you, for all the teachers and TA's that kept our children safe when this storm was brewing, for working so, so hard to get a learning pack put together to help us to teach our kids when they are at home, for supporting us every day when it's needed and for the teachers that are still working’.

We appreciate all feedback. It’s good to know when things are going well -  but also how to improve. A big thank you.

Food Donations

We receive donations of miscellaneous food items in school from an organisation called ‘Fareshare’. Normally these are used in school by Breakfast Club and Chill Time Klub. However, during this time we would like to distribute any food we receive to families in need. If over the coming week’s you would like to be considered to receive items, please call the school office. We will prioritise due to need and contact families if/when food is available.

A reminder - keeping in touch

We hope that as many children as possible can share something with their teacher through a Blog comment or email every day - even if it's just to say ‘I’ve done my work!’. All of the blogs can be found on the school website. The class emails are:

• reception.ctk@education
• year.1@ctk.education
• year.2@ctk.education
• year.3@ctk.education
• year.4@ctk.education
• year.5@ctk.education
• year.6@ctk.education
• LH.1@ctk.education (for Learning Hub 1)
• LH.2@ctk.education (for Learning Hub 2)

We hope to support you with any outstanding technical problems; please keep contacting us and we will do everything we can to solve any problems you may have.

Ongoing Support

As always, if you need advice or support in any way please contact us. Even if we are unable to solve problems we will do our best to give advice or signpost you to other agencies.

Have a happy and peaceful Easter.

Yours sincerely

Matt Condon
Headteacher

Where can I go to get support to help keep my child safe online?

There is a lot of support available to keep your child safe online. Below are some useful links to help parents and carers:

• Thinkyouknow (advice from the National Crime Agency to stay safe online)

• Internet matters (support for parents and carers to keep their children safe online)

• Parent info (support for parents and carers to keep their children safe online)

• LGfL (support for parents and carers to keep their children safe online)

• Net-aware (support for parents and careers from the NSPCC)