Dear Parents/Carers,

Zoom Assemblies

On Friday we had our first Zoom assembly. It was a fantastic way of celebrating the success of children over the last two weeks. To ensure the assembly is managed safely, we are only currently inviting classes in school, staff in school and children at home who have awards that week - if we have permission to do so.

This means that the children listed below can join the assembly next week.

To help us to manage these assemblies safely:

• We will require permission vaia email if we do not already have it.
• Can children use their real names on Zoom. Zoom does enable children to change their names, but this makes it difficult to know we are admitting the right person into the assembly.
• Unfortunately those joining the assembly late, will not be admitted.

We hope soon to share videos of the assemblies on Facebook, so you can all watch it and join the celebration!

School Uniform

Our school uniform suppliers have recently moved and can now be found at:

julian@shclothing.co.uk
SH CLOTHING LTD UNIT 17
BARNACK TRADING ESTATE NOVERS HILL
BEDMINSTER

BS3 5QE

Headteacher’s Awards

Reception -

• Zach - for doing fantastic learning of new words and numbers.
• Elsie - for working hard at her home learning activities especially in science by investigating what objects sink or float.
  

Year 1 -

• Harper G - for working incredibly hard at home and writing a lovely short story of the Three Little Pigs using her phonic sounds.
• Flynn - for having such an improved attitude towards his home learning and trying hard to complete the work.
  

Year 2 -

• Toby - For a fantastic innovation of our story.
• Abby - For a super innovation of our story. Fantastic use of adjectives.
• Fritzhie - For working hard at home and using her own ideas to innovate our class story.
• Angelica - For always working incredibly hard at home.
  

Year 3 -

• Freya- For completing all of her home learning to a fantastic standard at home and confidently sharing photos of her work on Google Classroom. Freya has also challenged herself to complete extra work.
• Kaiden- For challenging himself to use our key vocabulary when writing his brilliant jungle diary. His writing is absolutely brilliant!
• Josiah- For persevering with his joined handwriting and working hard to carefully and neatly join his letters. The improvement we have seen is stunning!

Year 4 -

• Maisie- For independently writing an exciting adventure story based on our text, Mission Possible. Maisie then performed it in front of the camera, before uploading it to the classroom page for us all to enjoy. Superb home learning!

Year 5 -

• Deniro - for having a 'can do' attitude to his maths learning
• William - for combing back through his previous learning to add evidence for every lesson! What a star!
• Alexander - for his focus and attitude to his learning whilst working at home. So impressed!

Year 6

• Stephanie - for your excellent online English work. You follow the instructions exactly, lay your work out beautifully and submit high quality work.
• Jazleen - for helping others (including teachers) with their online learning troubleshooting.
  

Vacancy for School Cleaner

We have a vacancy for a school cleaner starting on the 4th January 2021, if you would be interested in the position please contact the school office. Hours for the vacancy are Monday to Friday 3.30pm to 5.30pm with some work required during the school holidays.

Dates for Diaries

End of Term 3 - Friday 12 February 2021. Term 4 - Monday 22 February 2021 to Thursday 1 April 2021. Term 5 - Monday 19 April 2021 to Friday 28 May 2021. Term 6 - Monday 7 June 2021 to Wednesday 21 July 2021.

Yours sincerely

Matt Condon Headteacher

Dear parents and carers of critical workers,

Government guidance states, ‘Parents and carers who are critical workers should keep their children at home, if they can’.

To ensure we are applying this guidance fairly across our community, we are asking parents and carers to provide evidence that they are a critical worker and have no other option to keep their child at home. Can parents/carers provide following evidence :

That a parent/carer is a critical worker (as defined by government guidance)

• The parent’s name
• Date of letter
• Role
• Working days/hours
• That no other parent or carer is available to care for their child at home - evidence of this is likely to be the same as for the critical worker.

Yours sincerely,

Matt Condon, Headteacher

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 Zoom or Google Meets 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.

We are therefore writing for permission so children are able to participate in video calls (see page 2).

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 account. 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.

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, with no inappropriate objects/ information visible.
• Please ensure that your child is appropriately dressed. 
• School expectations and rules should be adhered to as they would usually be in the classroom.
• do not share the meeting password with anyone else.
• Microphones should be muted to reduce background noise unless speaking.

Teachers should not be invited to meet on zoom by parents/carers or children, unless prior mutual agreement has been reached  by all parties.

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

To use the video link in our email, just click on the link. 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 override any that we have put in place to safeguard your child.

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.

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.

Parents, please email us to confirm that you wish for your child to participate using one of our video calling platforms (zoom/Google meets). Without confirmation we may not be able to allow your child to participate.

Please send your permission email to the relevant class email address and state the followig:

I ___(enter your name)_____ give permission for my child ___(enter child's name)__ to use the schools video calling platforms.

Please send to the appropriate email:

• 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.2@ctk.education (Learning Hub 2)
• christ.the.king.p@bristol-schools.uk

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

Yours sincerely,

 

Matt Condon

Headteacher

 

 

Dear Parents/Carers,

Contact with School: 

A number of our Teaching Assistants are working from home supporting online learning. They will be regularly phoning parents to check everybody is well at home and also support with online learning. This may mean that calls which register as ‘unknown caller’ between 9am and 3pm are from the school.

Headteacher’s Awards

Year 1 -  

• Zuzanna - For working really hard on her home learning this week and creating a fabulous picture linked to our story.
• Alfie, Bella and Frankie - For engaging with some of the home learning this week.

Year 2 -  

• Cody - For making a super effort to engage with our home learning.
• Summer - For making a super effort for making a fabulous musical instrument linked to our story.

Year 3 - 

• Tracy- For taking time to focus on her times tables at home and achieving an incredible score. Fantastic! 
• Tallulah- For believing in herself and persevering with tricky maths questions using grid method for multiplication.
• Sofia- For completing her home learning  and sharing photos of her wonderful work with us on Google classroom. 

Year 4 -

• Ayla- For engaging in all of the lessons and joining our weekly zoom meetings to stay connected with her friends and teachers. Ayla was smiling for the entire zoom meeting this week and her happiness was just what we needed! 

Year 5 -  

• Miley - for a fantastic attitude to learning. You have worked so hard this week. You have been flexible in your approach to learning and have worked independently. Well done!
• Cody - for diving into the Google classroom so enthusiastically this week - great to have you back in the Google classroom!
• Serenity - for her positive attitude and resilience with her home learning. Well done for submitting everything every day!
• Justin - for his superb attention to detail in his English. Fabulous home learning!

Year 6

• Dylan - for his fantastic effort with his maths work, this week. He has asked for help, when he is not sure and has responded to online feedback. Well done for submitting your work everyday.
• Chanelle - for being consistently positive in school, towards both staff and her classmates. Chanelle comes into school each day with a can-do attitude, and a great work ethic. 

Home Learning - a reminder and some updates

Thank you for your continued support with our home learning. The children have been engaged with their home learning. The work that has been submitted this week has been fantastic!

We have set up home learning for all classes. Links and information are all available under the ‘Home Learning’ tab on the website. If you need any password resets, or have any other problems please email us.

Key points about home learning

Lessons:

In classes, Google Classroom is being used for both school and home learning - the work is the same. The childrens’ timetable, which is shared at the start of the week, consists of reading, writing, phonics (infants only), comprehension, maths, RE, science and foundation subjects (including history, geography, PE, music, Spanish). This work is uploaded daily to your child’s Google classroom. There will be regular class Zoom meetings, giving teachers time to catch up with their class, celebrate work and give some feedback.

In Reception, parents and children are asked to access Tapestry daily to communicate with their teacher and upload work and videos there. 

Expectations:

Thank you for your supporting comments and kind gestures towards our staff. They are working incredibly hard to support your child with their home learning and all of our teachers are in school doing this. 

It is expected that your child logs on, daily, and uploads their completed work - this is so important because we will be able to see how the children are getting on and support those who need it.  In the infants, there are 3 hours of work set and in the juniors, there are 4 hours. Our fantastic team of teaching assistants are online during the school day, to support with any questions, give feedback and check in on the well-being of your child. We know from the first lockdown how much the children love interacting with the staff on Google Classroom and we can’t wait to see the wonderful things they are getting up to! 

Uploading work:

Before lockdown, your child was taught how to upload their work to Google Classroom - they were using it in class. We are well aware that they may need a bit of reminder so follow the link below for a parents’ guide to uploading work to Google Classroom.

https://www.ctk.education/home-learning/parents-guide-to-google-classroom?fbclid=IwAR2ra5f5jLidwW-j9c4-6hddUgLGTMPClGtT8t6IIQAwmJbSr3E51YLVRIo

Download the Google Classroom app on the app store or play store. You can also access the classroom, via your web browser.

If you have any questions or would like a tutorial, email your child’s teacher or contact the school office and an appointment can be made at a convenient time.

If Reception parents need any support with accessing Tapestry, please contact Miss Hunt via reception@ctk.education and she can remind you. 

Celebrations

We will regularly update our Facebook, sharing what the children are learning in each year group as well as sharing any news. Mr Condon will also share all of our news in our weekly newsletter. We will also have Zoom assemblies, so we can virtually come together, as a school and celebrate our Online Active Learners, seeing which class can achieve the highest percentage of home learning.

Use of Zoom or Google Meet

Staff will be increasingly be using these tools to keep in touch with children on a daily basis and also for regular face to face support and feedback. Where we do not yet have permission for your child to use this tool, we will be requesting it shortly, asking parents and carers to confirm permission via email.

Internet access

If your child does not have access to a computer or tablet, please contact the school office and we will arrange the loan of a device.

Here is some information which may be useful for families who don’t have internet access.  Certain mobile phone companies have come forward and are offering increased data allowances for disadvantaged children to help with the online learning.

https://get-help-with-tech.education.gov.uk/about-increasing-mobile-data

Use of Facemasks 

To help everybody to be safe, can I again strongly request that all parents and carers wear a facemask when they bring their child to school or collect their child. If there is a medical reason why this is not possible, we do understand and it would be helpful if you could let us know this. 

Support

Above all, 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. 

Vacancy for School Cleaner

We have a vacancy for a school cleaner starting on the 4th January 2021, if you would be interested in the position please contact the school office.  Hours for the vacancy are Monday to Friday 3.30pm to 5.30pm with some work required during the school holidays.

Dates for Diaries

End of Term 3 - Friday 12 February 2021.

Term 4 - Monday 22 February 2021 to Thursday 1 April 2021.

Term 5 - Monday 19 April 2021 to Friday 28 May 2021.

Term 6 - Monday 7 June 2021 to Wednesday 21 July 2021. 

Please continue to take care and stay safe during this difficult period. We hope to see you soon. 

Yours sincerely

Matt Condon

Headteacher

Dear parents and carers,

On Friday evening, due to the increasing number of children attending schools nationally, the government issued the following clarification:

‘Parents and carers who are critical workers should keep their children at home if they can’.

This will affect some parents and carers who have chosen to send their children to school, but are still able to look after their children at home. If this is the case, can you please not send your child to school and contact us tomorrow, so we can plan remote learning accordingly. 

With increasing numbers of children in school, and the risk of transmission being high, we must follow government guidance carefully on this matter.

Thanks again for your support.

Matt Condon, Headteacher

Dear Parents/Carers,

As you all know, sadly the school closed this week for a large number of pupils, until at least the half term holiday. However the school children are now still very active; whether in the school building or learning from home.

In this newsletter we will give you an update on what we are currently doing to support you all; as well as an indication of how we intend to make the school community, and learning for all, stronger over the coming weeks.

Firstly, I would like to start with an update on a new addition to our school community...

Our New Nursery Class

Our new nursery opened its doors this week and the children have been fantastic. 

It has been very special to have 2, 3 and 4 year olds with us exploring the new setting as they have spent a lot of their time cooking in the kitchen area, painting and trying out the new bikes! 

Miss Griffiths and Miss Harvey have really enjoyed meeting all of the new children and look forward to welcoming them again next week.

Free School Meals

A food Hamper will be provided fortnightly for all children that have registered for free school meals and that are not in school. These hampers will be ready, for collection only, from Tuesday afternoon. We will contact parents next week with specific times for collection. 

Contact

The main ways in which we can stay connected as a community continue to be:

• By telephone - the main school telephone line will be manned, should you need to contact the school during the lockdown period.
• The school email account christ.the.king.p@bristol-schools.uk will continue to be available and will be monitored on a daily basis.
• Emails are in place for you all to be in contact with class teachers:
• 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.2@ctk.education (for Learning Hub 2)

Home Learning

Firstly, a huge thank you to the children for being so engaged with their home learning. The work that has been submitted this week has been fantastic!

We have set up home learning for all classes. Links and information are all available under the ‘Home Learning’ tab on the website. If you need any password resets, or have any other problems please email us.

Key points about home learning

Lessons:

In classes, Google Classroom is being used for both school and home learning - the work is the same. The childrens’ timetable, which is shared at the start of the week, consists of reading, writing, phonics (infants only), comprehension, maths, RE, science and foundation subjects (including history, geography, PE, music, Spanish). This work is uploaded daily to your child’s Google classroom. There will be regular class Zoom meetings, giving teachers time to catch up with their class, celebrate work and give some feedback.

In Reception, parents and children are asked to access Tapestry daily to communicate with their teacher and upload work and videos there. 

Expectations:

Thank you for your supporting comments and kind gestures towards our staff. They are working incredibly hard to support your child with their home learning and all of our teachers are in school doing this. 

It is expected that your child logs on, daily, and uploads their completed work - this is so important because we will be able to see how the children are getting on and support those who need it.  In the infants, there are 3 hours of work set and in the juniors, there are 4 hours. Our fantastic team of teaching assistants are online during the school day, to support with any questions, give feedback and check in on the well-being of your child. We know from the first lockdown how much the children love interacting with the staff on Google Classroom and we can’t wait to see the wonderful things they are getting up to! 

Uploading work:

Before lockdown, your child was taught how to upload their work to Google Classroom - they were using it in class. We are well aware that they may need a bit of reminder so follow the link below for a parents’ guide to uploading work to Google Classroom.

https://www.ctk.education/home-learning/parents-guide-to-google-classroom?fbclid=IwAR2ra5f5jLidwW-j9c4-6hddUgLGTMPClGtT8t6IIQAwmJbSr3E51YLVRIo

Download the Google Classroom app on the app store or play store. You can also access the classroom, via your web browser.

If you have any questions or would like a tutorial, email your child’s teacher or contact the school office and an appointment can be made at a convenient time.

If Reception parents need any support with accessing Tapestry please contact Miss Hunt via reception@ctk.education and she can remind you. 

Celebrations

We will regularly update our Facebook, sharing what the children are learning in each year group as well as sharing any news. Mr Condon will also share all of our news in our weekly newsletter. We will also have Zoom assemblies, so we can virtually come together, as a school and celebrate our Online Active Learners, seeing which class can achieve the highest percentage of home learning.

Internet access

If your child does not have access to a computer or tablet, please contact the school office and we will arrange the loan of a device.

Here is some information which may be useful for families who don’t have internet access.  Certain mobile phone companies have come forward and are offering increased data allowances for disadvantaged children to help with the online learning.

https://get-help-with-tech.education.gov.uk/about-increasing-mobile-data

Headteacher’s Awards

Reception - 

• Jenson - for working really hard on his home learning-  especially his writing and using his phonic sounds!

Year 1 -  

• Lily-Rose - for sharing some fantastic examples of her home learning with staff on Google classroom!
• Lily R - for consistently completing her work at home to a high standard and sharing this everyday!
• Damian - for always doing his home learning and sharing his work with the teachers!

Year 2 -  

• Brody - For trying so hard with home learning and sharing images of himself working hard.
• Victor - For showing how fantastic he is at maths and working hard at home.  Well done
• Bethany- For excellent effort with home learning.  

Year 3 - 

• Ella- For completing all of her home learning to a fantastic standard and sharing photos and videos of her work each day. Absolutely brilliant!
• Macy- For being an enthusiastic learner and completing all of her home learning work, she has worked so hard. Macy also achieved a top score of 10/10 in our Zoom quiz- wonderful! 
• Logan- For trying so hard with her home learning and sharing her work with us at school. Well done! 

Year 4 -

• Harley- for engaging, completing and uploading all work this week for every home learning lesson. Harley responded to feedback and enjoyed both zoom lessons! 
• Angelina - for fantastic home learning all week and engagement with the google classroom.

Year 5 -  

• Charlotte, Ian and Justin - for doing ALL their home learning (and sometimes even a bit more on top!) and remembering to hand in their work on the google classroom.
• Serenity - for her perseverance in tackling tricky maths at home and doing her absolute best.
• Alex - for his superb engagement with the online learning and especially his prompt and effective response to feedback.

Year 6 - 

• Roxanne - for engaging quickly with her home learning and sending it in for us all to see - well done.
• Rubyleigh - for engaging quickly with her home learning, for sharing her work and for saying hello everyday.
• Gabriel - for always being prompt with his home learning. He follows the Google classroom instructions, engages with his online learning and uploads his consistently high quality work, daily - fantastic!

Some other reminders...

Use of Facemasks

To help everybody to be safe, can I again strongly request that all parents and carers wear a facemask when they bring their child to school or collect their child. If there is a medical reason why this is not possible, we do understand and it would be helpful if you could let us know this. 

School Crossing Patrol

From Monday, the School Crossing Patrol will be back on duty.  Please can you keep a safe distance from the SCP, while waiting to cross with them.  In some instances, we have painted a white outline on the pavement and you should remain outside of this space until they are in the road and stopping traffic for you to cross.  Thank you.

Primary School Applications for a New Reception Place for September 2021

If your child was born between 1 September 2016 and 31 August 2017 you'll need to  apply for a new reception school place for September 2021.  You'll need to apply by Wednesday 15 January 2020.

Apply online for a reception place for Sept 2021 at:

https://www.bristol.gov.uk/schools-learning-early-years/primary-admissions

Please contact the school office if we can help in any way.

Vacancy for School Cleaner

We have a vacancy for a school cleaner starting on the 4th January 2021, if you would be interested in the position please contact the school office.  Hours for the vacancy are Monday to Friday 3.30pm to 5.30pm with some work required during the school holidays.

Support

Above all, 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. 

Dates for Diaries

• End of Term 3 - Friday 12 February 2021.
• Term 4 - Monday 22 February 2021 to Thursday 1 April 2021.
• Term 5 - Monday 19 April 2021 to Friday 28 May 2021.
• Term 6 - Monday 7 June 2021 to Wednesday 21 July 2021. 

Please continue to take care and stay safe during this difficult period. We hope to see you all soon. 

Yours sincerely

Matt Condon

Headteacher

Dear Parents and Carers,

Firstly can I thank you all for your patience as we plan for this new lockdown. We are currently doing our best to respond to requests for children for places of vulnerable children and children of critical workers. As we have a large number of requests for places for children in these categories, please can you consider using alternative childcare, if this is possible. Whilst we want to welcome as many children as possible, the more children we have in school, the greater the risk of COVID transmission.

Thanks for your support.

Matt Condon

Headteacher

Dear all,

As you all know, today we have had to restrict school attendance to children identified, for whatever reason, under the ‘vulnerable’ category as well as children of key workers. We do expect these children to attend school each day - under the current circumstances. 

We do believe that, in some classes, we may have capacity for more children to attend school - although not enough for a normal opening. Some of you will have very good reasons why you would wish us to prioritise your child’s attendance - some of you will also feel it is safer for your child to remain at home.

If you would like us to consider your child attending school tomorrow, please text us on 07596 820850 or phone us at the school office on 966 4844, by 3 pm today, explaining why you would like us to prioritise your child’s attendance. We will then do our best to offer any places that we are able to, later today. Please do not bring your child to school unless we have confirmed that a place is available. 

As our new nursery class is starting a phased induction this week, with lower numbers, those children will still be able to attend as planned. We will update nursery parents soon about how the situation affects next week’s plans. 

Teachers have restarted remote learning today. If your child does not have access to a computer or tablet, please phone the school office after and we will arrange the loan of a device.

Thanks you all gain for your support at this difficult time.

Yours sincerely.

Matt Condon

Headteacher

Dear all,

It is with regret that I am confirming that we will not be open tomorrow for the majority of our pupils.

We do have a large number of staff who are able to be in school - but not enough to ensure safety for all. It is possible that arrangements may change Tuesday onwards, as we will do our best to get children into school safely, as soon as we can.

Tomorrow we will be open for children who have previously been identified, for whatever reason, under the ‘vulnerable’ category.

We will also be open to children who have previously been identified as children of key workers.

If your child has previously met the criteria, can you please text us on 07596 820850  to confirm attendance.

If you believe that your child does meet the criteria, but has not done previously, can you please phone the school after 8am tomorrow. Evidence of key worker status will be required.

Teachers will begin remote learning again tomorrow. If your child does not have access to a computer or tablet, please phone the school office after 9.30am and we will arrange the loan of a device.

As our new nursery class is starting tomorrow, with lower numbers, those children will still be able to attend as planned.

Tomorrow, I will again contact you all to let you know our plans for the rest of the week.

Thanks again for your support - the positive Facebook comments were very much appreciated.

Yours sincerely.

Matt Condon

Headteacher