Crestwood Park Primary School

Happy New Year everyone- it seems a bit odd to be saying this right now, but we are hoping that 2021 brings plenty of health and happiness to our Crestwood Park community.

On Monday all staff were in busily preparing for everyone to return, only to find that by Tuesday, we were planning for something completely different! (We hope you understand why we needed to close on Tuesday- we needed time to arrange plans, rotas, risk assessments etc.)

Since Wednesday we have been open for children of critical and key workers and also children who have additional needs of some sort. Thankyou all for your responses to this- we don't want to turn anyone away so we really appreciate how many parents have opted for 'part time' places, allowing us to offer more places for other children. Also enormous thanks to parents who have negotiated working from home themselves, so that children can stay with them- this is hugely appreciated.

We are now almost at capacity, so please do consider carefully before asking for places and also bear in mind the impact of not bringing children in when you've asked for a place- it's a bit like missing a doctor's appointment!

Having said all that, if you are struggling with home learning or are worried about your family for any reason, please give us a call to talk things through- we'd much rather you tell us how things are so we can try to help. Thank you for your understanding and support with this. 

Today's newsletter is full of important information, but from next week on, it will go back to being more about sharing news between home and school, so get ready to start sending in your photos and videos!

Over the weekend we will be making class pages on the website live. These will have all the details about what teachers are asking children to do each day. (The expectations from the Government regarding what schools are setting for remote learning have increased considerably since the last lockdown and you can find all the details about this on our 'Learning from Home' page )

If you want to know more about the statutory expectations for primary school during the lockdown and remote learning you can read this DfE document. 

As well as asking children to engage in lessons and complete activities, we are going to be checking in to see how much work is being completed. When activities are completed on Purple Mash, teachers can check on work and send you a comment. With other activities, you can email work into teachers or send messages. We will also be showing children how to add answers, comments and upload documents through the  website- keep a look out for details about how to do this. 

You will also be able to ask questions and chat about your learning during a weekly catch up meeting. This will be via a Teams meeting. You'll need to get this ready for your first meeting next week - use this guide to setting up Teams to help. These meetings are for ALL children in the class, even if they are at school at the moment. 

It is really important that children engage with their home learning- teachers will keep a record of this and get in touch with parents if they are at all worried. 

We're always very happy to answer queries- if you have a technical question about Remote Learning, please call school on the usual number. If you have a question or request regarding the actual lessons or activities- or if you require more paper resources, please email your class teacher.

Thankyou

If you've requested a paper pack or booklet, these are now ready for you to collect after 10am from Monday onwards. Mrs Kennedy knows if you've asked for these to be posted so if you've requested this, look out for the postman!

Happy New Year to you all, we hope you are well and enjoying our beautiful wintery weather. Our Crestwood Park family would like to create a piece of artwork to keep us all in mind and connected.  To do this we need your help.  Please can you draw around your hand on a piece of paper and cut it out.  Then decorate it however you wish.  This can include your name, positive messages, lots of colour, glitter etc...be as creative as you like. Either return it to the school office or you could take a photo and email it to us at .... When we have created our art piece we will take a photo for you all to see.

Thinking of you all and holding you in our hearts, always here if you need to talk, with love from The Pastoral Team xx

Just like during the last Lockdown(!), we're hoping lots of you will be improving your multiplication skills using TT Rock Stars. From Monday onwards, Mrs Morgan will be keeping a close eye on the top performers and improvers and will be awarding certificates to children in school and at home.

If you can't remember your username or password or are having any problems, please email Mrs Morgan on gmorgan@crestwood-p.dudley.sch.uk

The very best of birthday wishes are sent to all these children who have had their birthday so far in 2021. Happy Birthday to you all! 

Children- look out for video or audio messages from your teachers on class pages every Monday, to welcome you to the week and to explain a little bit about what they would like you to do.

Remember in the last lockdown when you sent in your photos of ways you were keeping active at home? Well we'd like you to do it again! More details will be on next week's newsletter!

Also, keep your eyes peeled for a message from Mr Barnett next week with some whole school challenges to keep you fit and active whilst you're at home.

We hope you've enjoyed the wintery weather- if you've got any pictures of snowy creations from over Christmas or more recently, send them in via info@crestwood-p.dudley.sch.uk and we'll feature them in next week's newsletter.

We are sure you would like to join us in offically welcoming Mr Benbow to our school community. Under normal circumstances he would have been teaching the Year 3 class, but for now he's in charge of the Yr2 and 3 Bubble. 

Welcome to the Crestwood Park family Mr Benbow, we are sure you will fit in perfectly!

We'll be trying hard to remind children about our Crestwood Park values during the lockdown and to help do this we will still be sharing a whole school assembly (every Friday), awarding A,B,C certificates weekly and looking out for children displaying our SPARKS values. This half term we are focusing on AWARE .

We appreciate that for many families, the thought of home schooling is pretty daunting for a whole range of reasons. Whilst we do expect children at home to engage well and continue to learn, we don't want parents and carers to feel over-whelmed. Please, if you are worried in any way- call or email us and we can help.

Look after yourselves and each other, stay safe and we hope you have an enjoyable weekend. Sending love to you all.

Safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children is the responsibility of everyone in our school and at all times we consider what is in our children’s best interests. We work to ensure our children our safe and cared for and by doing this we are protecting their health and development and preventing them from harm.  If we are worried, we will raise concerns, share information and take prompt action with the aim of ensuring families receive the right help at the right time.