Letters to Parents and Children

6th April 2020

To the children of St.John’s Church of England Academy

Hello!

How are you? I hope that you are enjoying your time at home and are still being good for your parents.

I also hope that you are trying hard to help out your family around the house and are managing to spend lots of time playing and learning together. Take time to read together with your family, chat, play board games, cook, make things, learn new skills and have some fun – these are just as important as doing schoolwork set by your teacher.

Remember to get plenty of exercise and fresh air, have fun playing and sharing precious time with your family.

We have set up new email accounts so that you can contact your class teacher after the Easter break to share your work through messages and photos. They would love to see your learning.

Stay safe with your families and enjoy your Easter together.

Dear Parents / Carers

Well, this has definitely been an unusual term for all of us and one that I really couldn’t predict as I took up my post as Headteacher of St Johns Church of England Academy in January 2020.

It’s been nearly two weeks since we started national lockdown, introduced by the Government to protect us against the spread of Coronavirus. Life has temporarily changed for us all and I understand the difficulties this has presented but hope that you are settling well into a new routine. Do what you can in terms of the activities we have suggested but please don’t feel pressure to do too much. Please note these activities are there to ‘support’ you as parents during this period of home schooling. I would like to take this opportunity to thank you all for everything that you have done to support your children in these challenging circumstances.

At this Easter time, I feel that it is important for us all to be spending quality time as a family and looking after one another’s well-being. During this time we encourage you to read, sing and dance together, play games, make lunch, learn to tie your shoe laces (very important for when we finally return to school!), do household jobs and if you have a garden, get outside as much as you can. Cooking is great way for children to use multiple skills – it’s literacy, maths, science, art and more. And the end you get to eat something delicious. It could be baking cakes or preparing the family dinner. Spend time together that you don’t usually have time for.

How your child felt when they were at home with you during this time will stay with them long after the memory of the academic activities they did fades.

It’s learning, but not as we know it… Useful Life Skills.

This is an ideal time to introduce life skills that are not part of a school curriculum.

Here are 10 reasons children should learn household skills.

1. It teaches responsibility

2. It makes them aware of the messes they create.

3. It makes them appreciate and take care of their things

4. It builds self-reliance and independence

5. It builds confidence to succeed at something new

6. Many hands make light work and help create time for other activities.

7. It keeps them active and moving.

8. It’s family time and chance to have a chat over a shared activity

9. They learn to work together to tackle problems

10. You could increase motivation using rewards such as baking a cake or watching a film together.

These are difficult times for all of us and none of us know how long it will last and when things will get back to normal. We’ve all faced huge challenges personally and professionally and yet, I hope you’ll agree, there have been many heart-warming moments to come out of this crisis where community spirit has been at its strongest.

We continue to be open to provide Key Worker Emergency Childcare cover and this will be continuing for the foreseeable future. However, I would like to reiterate the government’s advice, that where children of key workers can be cared for at home, they should be. This limits the number of people leaving their homes and keeps the number of people coming into contact with each other to a minimum. We will continue to offer childcare over the school’s Easter break (except Good Friday and Easter Monday).

For the parents, carers and family members that are continuing to work on our behalf to keep us all safe; thank you for your dedication and please take care.

Happy Easter to everyone from St Johns Academy; we hope that you and your families stay well and keep healthy.