St James E-News
4th March 2021
Welcome to the St James Primary School's E-News, a weekly roundup of the latest goings on at the school.
Latest Headteachers Blog
Dear Parents,
There has been a lot of discussion in the media about children missing education during this lockdown and ,even worse, being called the 'Covid Generation'. They have put across a picture of children having huge gaps in their learning, which they may never catch-up. Our experience of the children's return to school last September taught us that they are resilient, that they missed school and were really keen to learn. Over the autumn term most children made really good progress and caught up in many areas of their learning. Not only that, they showed us they had learnt many other things during lockdown, such as being more independent learners, developing hobbies and interests and valuing the friendships they have made in school even more. In this lockdown everyone has become an expert in Teams, (whether we wanted to or not!), but the IT skills and strategies for working online which the children have developed will be essential life skills for the future.
A highly respected education academic called Professor John Hattie, who has done a great amount of research into how to support children to catch-up on their learning, carried out a study of the young people in New Zealand who missed huge amounts of school due to the Christchurch earthquakes a few years ago. He found that their end of school results did not suffer, and that young people were motivated to make the best of their learning.
I am adding a handout to the parent portal from an education organisation which gives a more positive view of the children's return to school, and we want to celebrate what the children have learnt in the last few months, as well as focusing on any gaps.
We are really looking forward to seeing all the children back on Monday and we are hopeful that this is the beginning of a return to some normality.
Best wishes for a lovely weekend,
Valerie Elliott
School Notices
- Information Update - All of the information that may need regarding returning to school on Monday is contained in the Information Update document on the parent portal. We have also added details of our cleaning protocol.
- Fun Friday Mufti Day, Friday 12th March- we are really excited at the prospect of all the children being in school again. To celebrate, we have planned a mufti day next Friday, 12th March. Children may dress either in mufti or, since we haven't all had the opportunity to dress up together for World Book Day, as their favourite book character.
- Red Nose Day, Friday 19th March - we are planning some exciting events in school for this day, look out for the letter in the parent portal next week.
Letters this week
The following classes have had letters uploaded to the Parent Portal this week. Note: You will need to login to view this area.
- Whole school
- Penguins
- Kestrels
News Blogs
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Dates for your diary
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School Meals
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