Dear P7 Parents/Carers

I hope you are all safe and well. I’m trying to contact everyone to check in but as you can imagine, this is a big task and it’s taking me a while to reach you all. I thought this might be the most effective way to get an important message out to you all at once.

 

Firstly, I want to reiterate Mrs Mill’s message that your children’s health and wellbeing is our top priority during this uncertain period. This is especially important for our Primary 7’s as we want them to be confident and in a good place mentally for their transition to high school. Please don’t allow expectations of school work to add unnecessary pressure on to them or the rest of your family.

 

I understand that every household has different challenges at the moment. Some of you are trying to work from home; others are working as key workers; some may even face a period of unexpected unemployment. I know that for many there’s more than one child at home, which can bring about additional challenges. They may be sharing devices or you may be trying to support different stages of learning at the same time.

 

Please know that there is no pressure from me with regards to completing all of the tasks online. I am not chasing up missed tasks or expecting children to go back and catch up on everything that’s been set. However, I do think that engaging with some learning through a ‘little and often’ approach would be beneficial to them going forward. Most of the tasks I’ve set have been designed with this in mind. It’s unrealistic for us to expect children to sit from 8:50 – 3:20 working at home each day. They will need regular breaks and maybe even some days off to do things with family (walks, garden play, helping to make dinner, etc.). Please don’t forget that there is so much learning in everyday chores. How many P7 children can work the washing machine?

 

I also think it’s important that you hear from me that I am not concerned about the move to high school. Any learning that is missed will be picked up by teachers next year. Be reassured in knowing that we were already a little ahead of where we needed to be. Term 4 is always busy but for P7, that is an understatement. I can say with certainty that there would have been very few weeks of uninterrupted learning this term. We had trips planned as well as school visitors. The various transition programmes all begin at different times and as the weeks went on, we’d have been lucky to have a full class for a full week. We also would have spent lots of time planning and preparing our leavers assembly and we’d have had our Fitness Fortnight. I have planned for this all year and so we worked extremely hard to cover what we needed to in the first three terms, leaving us time for all that term 4 brings. We also didn’t waste time getting started at the beginning of the session as I knew all the children well from last year. Your children will begin high school in a good place academically.

 

With all that being said, I do think it’s important for the children to engage in some learning activities going forward but not at the expense of their health and wellbeing. I will continue to post a grid of suggested activities for children to work through Monday to Thursday. We will use Fridays for feedback sessions. I will post the answers to tasks and the children will have the opportunity to self assess, share and discuss their learning. I will also hold a group video call to finish off the week. Please note that the children can see and hear me but they can only be heard and not seen. This is a great opportunity for us to connect as a class and discuss what we’ve been up to throughout the week. Even if your child hasn’t completed any tasks that week I would still encourage them to join our chat and keep connected.

 

I will post the learning at home grid on to the blog each week to help you to plan some activities into your week, where possible. However, I must ask that you don’t use your child’s Glow details to access Teams as we must keep the platform safe, which means it is for pupils and teachers only. I realise it’s a little daunting leaving it up to the children to manage but feel free to sit beside them and help them if they need it. This is actually good practice for next year when they will be responsible for managing their own home learning. Most high schools use Teams for this already.

 

Finally, something I won’t be covering this term is the relationships, sexual health and parenthood topic. This requires a safe space for children to learn and ask questions and it’s not possible for us to recreate that safe space online. Younger classes will cover this when school resumes but as our P7s may not be back to LVPS I am offering to send you the national resource with the specific lessons I planned to cover. I would not suggest you try to follow the lesson plans as they are designed for a classroom/group setting. I suggest reading over the plans and then perhaps have a conversation with your child if you think they would cope with that. If this is something you’d be interested in, please send me an email requesting this. You can get my email address from your child or contact the school office. I must ask that you do not give the resource to your child to read as it is not written for children. If you would rather not cover the topic or you find your child is not in a place to discuss it with you, please just leave it. It will all be covered again at high school. I just want to give you the option to have those discussions if you feel your child would benefit from it.

 

I hope I’ve been able to put your minds at ease. This is not the final term we hoped for but we will make sure the children get some kind of leavers celebration. The children have started planning for how we might do this remotely instead of holding the usual assembly. If you need any help or support going forward, please feel free to send me an email. You can also contact the school office at wllivingstonvillage-ps@westlothian.org.uk

 

Give your child a giant hug from me and take care.

 

Mrs Brodie