Newsletter - w/c - 25/01/21

Dear Parent/Carer,

Please see below for some important notices about school life:

Remote Education

A continued thank you to those families working hard to ensure their child completes their schoolwork, either on-line via Google Classroom or by completing the paper-based Home Learning Pack. We are thankful that you recognise the bigger picture and long-term gains in helping your child continue their education during this national lockdown.

We do have a small number of parents/carers who are not encouraging their child/ren to do any schoolwork at home, treating this national lockdown like an extended school holiday. These parents/carers are forgetting that across the country there are many families where the adults are working hard with their children to stop this pandemic affecting their education and life chances. One day all these children will be adults competing for opportunities and if your child's education has been badly affected by this pandemic, they may miss out on jobs and opportunities that would bring them true happiness

We believe in our motto, 'Success for All' so we hope all our families will recognise the importance of setting aside a few hours each day to help every child complete their schoolwork. Please know that it's not enough to command a child to complete a worksheet or do the task on Google Classroom, you do need to sit next to them, read the instructions yourself, and check your child understands the task before letting them work on their own. If anything is unclear, please message your child's class teacher via Google Classroom or on Facebook Messenger, remembering they will only respond to messages sent between 8:30am - 3:30pm.

We are brainstorming ideas to reward both children and parents/carers who have worked hard with remote education - we will share the details with you in the coming weeks.

Google Meet

Each week, the teachers are arranging a Google Meet - live video streaming - so the children may see and speak to their teacher and their friends from class. This is a new platform for our teachers, children and parents/carers, so we may add further instructions in the weeks to come, but, in the meantime, please make sure your child (and you) follow these ground rules when using Google Meet:

Your child must be fully dressed (i.e. not in their pyjamas)
Your child must be sitting in a shared space (e.g. the kitchen or living room)
Your child (and the background of your home) may be seen and heard by other children and the teacher so make sure the space is calm and safe
Your child must use kind words and actions both when speaking and if they are using the chat feature
Parents/carers must not use the Google Meet to discuss matters involving their child as these will be heard by other children and parents/carers

Please be aware that to safeguard teachers and children, we will be recording all live streams.

If you do not wish for your child to take part in the Google Meet, that is perfectly acceptable.

Report Cards

We hope those parents/carers who have already received their child's report card have found them to be both informative and easy to understand. If you do have any questions about the report card, please ask your child's class teacher or teaching assistant when they telephone you for the weekly call. If your child is in school, and you wish to speak to your child's class teacher about the report card, please telephone or e-mail the school so your child's teacher will know to contact you.

For those of you who didn't visit school to collect the report card, a home learning pack or reading books on Monday, we are posting your child's report card to the home address we have on file so you should receive it within a week.

Parent Governor

Thank you to those parents/carers who have already cast their vote for Parent Governor. The role of Parent Governor is very important so we hope all parents/carers will take the time to read the candidate's statements and cast a vote. The deadline to cast your vote is at 3:00pm on Monday 25 January 2021. If you need a paper copy of the ballot paper that was e-mailed out last week, please visit the School Office.

------------------------------------------------

Yours sincerely,

The Administration Team

Hurst Drive Primary School

admin@hurstdrive.herts.sch.uk

01992 624099