Dear Parent / Carer,

Many of you are perhaps feeling overwhelmed by the current situation and are worried about the level of support that you are able to give your child with their home learning. We would like to reassure all families that the main priority during this unprecedented situation is ensuring that everyone stays healthy (mentally and physically).

Whilst we hope that all parents will support their children with the learning tasks assigned to them by their teachers, we would like to stress that we do not expect you to become a teacher yourself. All we ask is that you encourage your children to access Google Classroom every day and provide them with a quiet, comfortable space to complete their assignments. In the same way as homework should not become a battleground, neither should the current home learning experience. All teachers are available on Google Classroom to answer pupils’ questions and parents can contact the school by email if they need additional support.

You are, and always have been, your child’s primary educator. If you cannot facilitate the online learning at some points then that is okay. There are many alternative activities that you can do with your children that will have a positive impact on their academic achievement. For example:

• Reading every day
• Writing to loved ones that they cannot visit at the moment, recounting a special memory or keeping a diary
• Practical maths: cooking, sorting items, scavenger hunts (e.g. find 5 red objects or 3 objects beginning with ‘s’)
• Fine motor work: lego, cutting, playdough, tidying up small toys
• Research a topic of interest (country/famous person/invention, etc)
• Board games and card games
• Lots of imaginative free play

There is now a ‘Home Learning’ page on our website that has a range of helpful documents and videos to support you and your child with Glow, Google Classroom and other online tools. We will update this when necessary. Click here to access the page.