Mrs N’s Notes; Home Learning, January 2021
Happy New Year and welcome back to a new way of learning to kick start 2021.
As outlined by the First Minister, next week we begin another period of remote learning; with Kirkshaws staff teaching and supporting our pupils as they work at home. All school staff have spent this week planning, to ensure we have a full range of learning experiences ready to share with you, starting on Monday morning.
Once again, we are encouraging all families to join us on Teams, where we can work together over the coming weeks. Mr Sharp will share weekly grids in all the usual places (app, website, Teams) on Sunday evening, ready for you to start on Monday morning. In addition to the normal learning grid activities, we are offering a range of live lessons, recorded lessons and live chat sessions on Teams each day.
Each morning will start at 9.30am with a short Live Assembly on Teams if you can join us. We then aim to get everyone moving and exercising to some cheesy tunes with Mr Sharp at 10am daily. Each day your child’s teacher will suggest a range of activities that can be completed online, on paper, outdoors, etc. These lessons are designed to help you and make learning at home fun and engaging. Under no circumstances should you feel under pressure to complete every task on the day suggested; we understand you will adapt our plans to suit your family. Pupils do not sit looking at a screen from 9am to 3pm on a normal school day, so we certainly don’t expect that during this period when they are learning at home. Please break up the day as you see fit, with games and physical breaks added between learning tasks. If pupils want to send work back as an audio file or video, that’s fine too. Everything doesn’t have to be written or typed.
Please remember our staff are here to help you with any questions arising. As well as sending emails directly to their teacher (teacher emails can be found on class weekly grids), your child can use the chat function in Teams to ask for help. This live chat will be monitored by Kirkshaws staff for 3 hours each day to ensure all issues arising are dealt with immediately.
Remember that games consoles can also be used to access Glow.
If you do not have a device that your child can use at home, contact us and we will see what we can do to help, such as lend you an iPad for the next few weeks.
In addition to work created by our own staff, we also have access to other resources created across the authority. The Virtual Classroom is an exciting new teaching experience we look forward to exploring over the coming weeks. Access details have already been sent out by email and will be shared again on this week’s class weekly grids and next week on Teams.
Please remember that the school building will remain open next week for the children of Key Workers and other identified groups, so if you would rather collect paper-packs of work or would like someone to talk to, simply call the school office on 01236 632054 during school-hours and tell us what you need. Extra jotters, pencils, etc. can also be collected from the school office next week by appointment.
Looking to the weeks ahead, Home Learning Grids will be posted in all the usual places every Sunday evening, allowing you to plan your week: remember to check the Piota app, the school website and Teams for this information.
I look forward to seeing many of you on Monday morning at 9.30am for our first Assembly of 2021!
