I am writing as a follow up to my website post sent out last week regarding the proposed changes to our start and finish times from September 2021.

We have had 33 parents complete the Google Form, which is approximately 10% of our school population.

You can see from the above chart that 76% of parents who expressed their views shared that they are happy with the changes and 24% that shared that they were unhappy with the changes.

In addition to the 76% of parents who shared that they were happy to move forward, we also consider the fact that 90% of parents have chosen not to express their views, therefore, we do feel that the vast majority of parents are happy to move forward with the proposed changes.

Based on this, we have taken the decision to move forward with the changes, however, I will take some time to read through the comments from the few who have left one and will try my best to accommodate to support parents the best I can- it might be that I give you a call to chat through things if I do not feel we can support with your query.

I really do feel that the changes to start and finish time will really support our staff team to be even better versions of themselves, whilst not impacting on the progress of our children. Our school day is absolutely jam packed and the children are really being supported and challenged in terms of their academic studies, even more so as a result of the pandemic; I would not be changing the times if I really thought that this would impact on the academic progress being made by our children.

Please may I remind parents that if you do have any further queries around this matter, that the best way to communicate this is to give me a call at school or to drop me an email [email protected] and I will get in touch.

Thank you for your support regarding this matter, I will be in touch regarding any queries raised through the Google Form and will also be in touch regarding our wrap around care/after school club offer for September.

Regards,

Miss Laing

Headteacher

Dear Parents/Carers,

Just a reminder that we are seeking out your views regarding the proposed changes to our start and finish times for September. These were sent out last week via our website (see post below). So far, we have 11 parents who have shared their views. I am keen to collate a few more, before I write to parents to follow up on any queries raised/confirm our final times.

Please can I ask that parents wishing to complete the Google Form, do so by the end of tomorrow. I will then write to parents on Friday to confirm our plans.

Thanks to those parents who have already completed this.

Miss Laing

Dear Parents/Carers,

I am writing to inform you that we are proposing a slight change to our start and finish times from September 2021.

I have been thinking about the start and finish times at Carcroft for a while now, in particular since we lost one of Assistant Headteachers, last Summer. One of our lovely AHT’s left Carcroft last summer in order to take up a role in a school closer to home; she had shared that since having her little boy, her mornings had become a struggle, with us starting at 8.25am.

I did start to reflect upon this last year, but unfortunately, with us being mid way through a global pandemic, it just wasn’t the time to make any changes. However, since December, I have started to plan ahead and do believe that September is the right time for us to make some changes to our start time and finish times in order to better support our fab staff team.

One of the hardest parts of being a Headteacher, is trying to ensure that all stakeholders are happy with the way in which the school is being led and managed; I have a duty of care to all of our pupils, but in addition, I also have a duty of care to our staff team too and at times, this can be a challenge trying to please everyone.

I am hoping that the changes I am proposing will not inconvenience our parents, will still cater to the needs of our pupils, whilst showing our staff team, that their well-being is important to us too.

We have a number of Teachers at Carcroft, who are also parents, and I do worry that at the minute, they are working incredibly hard to spin all of their plates, in particular on a morning, when they have to not only get themselves ready for work, they also have to get their little one/ones ready for the day ahead and then finally, have to prepare for a full day with a class of approximately 20 pupils (as well as ensuring that their support staff are well briefed in order to ensure the smooth running of the day!); I am sure you can imagine, this is no easy task when you have to plan and deliver 14 subjects throughout the week.

After school, a Teachers job is not done when the children go home. As a staff team, we have two working meetings per week, which usually run from 3.30-4.45. These meetings are professional development meetings, whereby we meet to discuss everything in which we are doing, in order to ensure that it’s the best that it can be for our children. Following these meetings, Teachers then go on to prepare their resources, creating, printing and trimming ready for the next day.

After much thought and reflection and testing out a model school day, I have taken the decision to start our school day at 8.40. This will therefore allow our Teachers the time to get into school, after organising their own childcare etc and set up for their day in class without additional stress and anxiety of feeling that there is not enough time.

In order to allow sufficient time for staff to plan, prepare and organise for the next day, we are proposing that our school day finishes at 3pm on a Monday-Thursday and 1.50pm on a Friday. This way, meetings can start 15 minutes earlier and can finish 15 minutes earlier, giving staff an additional 30 minutes per week to spend on planning and preparation after school.

I have discussed our change of school day timings with our Executive Headteacher from the XP Trust in order to ensure they he is happy that our school day allows us to provide a full broad and balanced curriculum for our pupils whilst supporting staff well-being, to which he was happy for me to move forward and share with parents.

I have attached a copy of the proposed model school day below in order to demonstrate the coverage of our curriculum across a school week. so that parents can see what our week will look like.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1C-z6M_l5YGcNluooRg2VSCAJxNnCm-OPoVYUY9u1Wq0/edit?usp=sharing

I am hoping that parents can see that despite slightly changing our timings, we can still fit everything into our school week, whilst ensuring that our fabulous staff team have the time to undertake their role to a high standard. Without our dedicated staff team, we would be unable to run our school and we want the best staff around in order to make our school the best it can be. I am hoping that these slight changes will support us in keeping the best team around.

I would be grateful if you could complete the Google Form in order to express your support or share any queries in which you may have. There are two options, one to express that you understand the rationale and are happy to move forward with the revised times and one where you can share you are unhappy and can share your reasoning as to why.

https://forms.gle/DjLzYqBAnFS7b7HM6

I will review parent voice and will ensure that I reflect upon any comments/queries and suggestions made before finalising the changes; I will be in touch in due course.

Wrap Around Provision and After School Clubs

I have also started to plan for our clubs to fully reopen after the summer break. In addition, we are looking to offer a wrap around care option for our working parents, something which we have been hoping to do for a while. This is the provision in which we are hoping to offer and would love to hear if this is something that would support/be of interest to you from September.

We are looking to offer a breakfast club from 7.30 at a small fee (to be confirmed).

We will also be offering 1 hour clubs until 4.15 (Monday-Thursday) at a small fee (to be confirmed).

Finally, we are going to be offering an extended after school club until 6pm (Monday to Friday) at a small fee (to be confirmed).

We hope that by offering these clubs, we can better support parents, pupils and our community as we move forward on our journey.

Please express your interest in our wrap around care offer/after school clubs by completing the form below.

https://forms.gle/U5Tj1Kszz4EvL5ZF9

We will be coming back to parents with our price list for clubs and wrap around and will be in touch with regards to booking places for September after our half term break.

Thank you in advance for your support. You may have noticed that Facebook commenting has been switched off, as the more efficient way for us to collate parent views is via a Google Form. It also means that myself and Mrs Lythe do not have to manage the Facebook feed/thread over the weekend as it cane become extremely time consuming.

Thank you for your understanding, have a lovely weekend.

Miss Laing

Our handwriting stars from this week… 🎉🥳

I got to celebrate an improvement in handwriting from two wonderful pupils- Freya and Macey.

Both girls are taking pride in their work and are trying to ensure that their work is always beautiful.
They also read their work aloud- it was lovely to listen to them read their work and see them feeling so proud. Some great word and phrase choices selected to keep the reader interested. You certainly had me gripped.

I am hoping for a few more next week… 🙏🏻

This was Freya’s work in September….

This is Freya’s work now.. such fab progress 🙌

And Macey…

Today I celebrated with this fabulous bunch of Carcroft stars ⭐️ These children were chosen because they have made good progress with their handwriting and presentation which is something we are really working on as a school post lockdown. We also listened to Shay and Lacey read their writing aloud- wow! 🙌 They blew me away. Proud of them both. I’m also really pleased with how much work our Year 1 pupils Daisy and Lyla are now producing. Finally, Ray’s book is beautifully presented as always. ⭐️⭐️

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Thank you to those parents who have provided us with feedback regarding the XP Calendar. I have looked through parents comments and have made some slight changes to our final version of the 2021/22 Academic Calendar.

Carcroft staff will work the same number of days as outlined on the Local Authority Calendar. However, you will see that we will start our term, 1 day earlier in-line with the XP Schools. Then, in July, we will continue our term for a further 4 days once the XP Schools have broken up for Summer.

I would like to thank parents for their understanding in terms of the rationale behind us proposing that we would like our staff to attend the 5 additional INSET days alongside XP Staff, as we truly believe these days will be essential in terms of moving our school forward.

The calendar is never going to be straight forward, as everyone’s context is different. However, I do believe that this calendar is going to be a really good fit for us as a school next year. Staff will have 5 additional days to improve the education in which they provide to your children, whilst aligning the dates with the local authority calendar for 2021/22.

We will then fully align our calendar with the XP Trust from September 2022, but there will be more to come on this in the Autumn Term so that you can plan for the following academic year.

In the meantime, if there are any queries, please do not hesitate to contact me via email on [email protected].

Please can I ask parents to refrain from commenting on the post over the weekend period, in order to allow school staff a little bit of a respite after a busy first week back.

Thank you,

Miss Laing

Dear Parent/Carers,

After the Easter Break, on the first Wednesday back (the 14th April), we have our very first ‘Covid Safe’ version of the Wizard of Oz production coming to CPS!

M&M Productions usually visit our school for World Book Day each year and this year is no different.. it’s just a little later than usual. It will also look a little bit different, as they have reduced the cast size, whilst keeping it just as exciting and engaging!

In order to really enhance the children’s learning experience that week, we are going to use the text/video of the Wizard of Oz as a stimulus to drive our learning for that week.

In addition, we would like our families at home to get involved over the Easter Break too. So, what would we like you to do?

We would love for the children to come into school on Wednesday 14th April in Wizard of Oz dress up! This can be anything Wizard of Oz related…. So it’s time to get exploring over the holiday and thinking of a plan. As long as the children can explain their costume choices, anything goes!

We are then going to ask the children within each crew to vote for their favourite costume attempt and will be asking them to explain why …

There will be prizes for every pupil who comes along in costume on that day and in addition, there will be an overall crew prize for the crew winner!

We can’t wait to see what the children come up with!

Have a fabulous break everyone; It’s extremely well deserved. I can’t wait to see everyone back with us after the break- it’s been a very strange week.

Thank you again for all your support.

See you all on Monday 12th April.

Miss Laing

Headteacher

Dear Parents/Carers,

I thought that it might be easier to write a post to explain procedures for bubble closures after reading some of the posts on Facebook and trying to respond to each query on an individual basis.

When we have a positive test result, in tonight’s case, it’s the lateral flow tests, we ask the member of staff to consider who they have had close contact with. Close contact is a tricky concept but it’s taken from the government guidance and when you ring Public Health, they give the same message. This is outlined in the paragraph below.

• anyone who lives in the same household as another person who has COVID-19 symptoms or has tested positive for COVID-19
• anyone who has had any of the following types of contact with someone who has tested positive for COVID-19:
  • face-to-face contact including being coughed on or having a face-to-face conversation within one metre
  • been within one metre for one minute or longer without face-to-face contact
  • been within 2 metres of someone for more than 15 minutes (either as a one-off contact, or added up together over one day)

Within a school context, this is usually the staff and pupils within their bubble as they might work closely/sit next to a pupil in their class at some point that day and tend to sit within 2m of each other throughout the day.

Some of you have questioned that pupils from more than one bubble have mixed during the last week. This only ever tends to be for RWI for most pupils as it’s really important that the children read a book which is the right level for them to read. So, for example, we have some Y2s in with Y3s but they sit 2m apart from the other year group and only have close contact with the member of staff from their own bubble. So, in Y2, the Y2 member of staff has contact with the Y2 children and the member of staff who has tested positive teaches from the front, which is 2m away from those Y2 pupils. The Y3 member of staff in this bubble works with their pupils but not anybody else.

The nature of reading allows us to keep our distance as we can get the children to read aloud without getting close to them. With Reading groups, we think carefully about the size of the room, so that the children can sit 2m apart from pupils from another bubble too. We spend a significant amount of time planning reading groups to ensure we teach children at the level they need whilst maintaining social distancing measures.

For any pupils that require close contact in Reading to support them to access the reading lesson (this is the odd one or two), we send a member of staff from their bubble to sit next to them, so that the other adult doesn’t have to get close to them.

Our staff know to keep 2m distance from pupils who are not in their own bubble as this then does not warrant isolation and reduces the number of pupils being asked to isolate if we have a positive staff case.

In addition, children take their own pencils with them from their own bubble and then their tables are wiped down afterwards. They share a book with someone from their own bubble, so do not share any equipment with another bubble.

I thought it might also be useful to share how the guidance works using another scenario as I understand it’s not an easy concept to get our heads around. When I contracted C-19 and did my track and trace with public health/NHS England, I had met with 6 adults during the 2 days before (during the period of transmission) and when I did my track and trace, these adults were not contacted to isolate because we were sat 2m apart at all times, even though some of the meetings were quite long. Contact tracing does not pick up cases where they have been 2m apart. In addition, none of these 6 adults contracted the infection, so I have good faith that the 2m ruling does on the whole seem to work the vast majority of the time (not always, but from what we have found, it’s fairly accurate).

Regarding staff crossing bubbles, we do try and ensure that staff do not cross bubbles, however, there are times when we have to utilise staff to go into another bubble to cover absence/staff days off and to keep children safe in terms of staff/pupil ratios and also for any pupils whom require additional support such as with their social, emotional and mental health needs etc. However, again, we know which staff have been where and can then inform track and trace as required. Staff know that if they go into another bubble, they should not have contact with another member of staff, as our policy is to maintain 2m distance.

We have looked at who the two members of staff with positive LFD tests have had contact with and believe that we have contacted the people whom they believe to have had close contact with. However, if the members of staff think of anybody else, we can ensure that these people are informed too if we have missed anyone.

We do understand that for parents, it’s a bit of a minefield, however, myself and Mrs Lythe have worked with Public Health and C-19 guidance for 12 months now and do believe that we have a secure understanding of what the guidance means. In particular, within school, we ensure that as much as possible, we try and stick to the 2m ruling for staff -staff and for any pupils that for whatever reason are required to work in another group, as explained for reading.

I have noted that a parent has shared that their child has been sent to work in another class for a different reason, again, the child will be seated 2m away from the others and the Teacher will ensure that they do not have close contact with that pupil. If they have, then they would let us know about this.

Regarding siblings, guidance states that it’s only children who have had the close contact with the positive LFD case who has to isolate. If your child starts to show symptoms, it’s at that point that the sibling along with the rest of the family would isolate. Again, it’s a confusing concept, but not everyone who comes into contact with a positive case contracts the virus. For example, my partner did not contract the virus despite me having it and us living in the same household.

I do understand that it’s a tricky concept, however, we do believe that we have contacted all those who have been classed as having potential close contact with the two potential positive cases this evening.

However, if you do wish for your child to isolate as a precaution, then this is your decision to do so- please let the office know.

As a school we are working extremely hard to try and educate pupils at the right level for them in order to help them to catch up after missing chunks of their education whilst also trying to ensure that we do our best to minimise chance of transmission. However, there are unfortunately going to be occasions when the virus does make it’s way into school and staff/pupils may unfortunately contract it. All we can do, is minimise this by implementing social distancing measures as outlined above including the 2m ruling and sticking to bubbles for as much of the day as possible.

If, after reading this post, you still have any questions or queries, please may I ask that you contact myself and Mrs Lythe via email and we will try and get back to you at some point. Please can we ask that parents refrain from commenting on Facebook as it becomes a really challenging task managing the feed and given it’s a Friday evening, I would really appreciate it if parents contacted us on a 1:1 basis instead as this is much easier for me to manage. However, we are here to help via email so please do not hesitate to get in touch if you need anything.

[email protected]

[email protected]

I hope that this is helpful in trying to explain the guidance and reassure parents that we really are trying our absolute best to get the balance right between educating our pupils whilst playing our part in slowing down the virus in terms of transmission.

Thank you for your co-operation and understanding during this time.

Miss Laing

Headteacher

See what everyone’s been up to this week as the XP Primary School’s return from Lockdown 3.

Click on this link.

Have a lovely weekend everyone 😊