Latest News
Keep up to date with all the latest news happening in school at the moment.
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Letter to parents for half term
Fri 22 May 2020Dear Parents and Carers,
We hope you have all been enjoying the beautiful weather.
We can't believe how quickly another half term has passed. Next week is half term and school will be closed to children but staff will be in, making sure that the rooms are ready for a wider opening on June 1st.
We hope you all have a happy holiday although it may not feel any different to the previous week!
Although the numbers of key worker children attending school has steadily increased, it is strange not to have the usual noise, hustle and bustle and excitement in school and that is why we so enjoy your emails with messages and pictures showing us what you have been doing. We look forward to the time that we are all back together and can have that Global Families Carnival!
You will have now received Miss Cockburn's letter with details of the proposed opening on 1st June 2020 and a map that will give you the directions of how to arrive and leave the school site. Children who are attending school from June 1st will also receive a letter in the post detailing which group your child will be in, their new classroom base, staggered start and pick up times and who their staff members will be.
With Reception and Key worker children returning, the school will be full and all of the teaching teams will be deployed teaching and planning learning full time. This means that we will not be able to offer online learning as some parents have enquired of us. However, we will continue to send the weekly year group emails with resources and suggestions for learning at home and this learning will mirror that being delivered to the children in school.
Each week we will send (obviously the format for Reception and Nursery children will look slightly different);
English- differentiated reading comprehensions and writing tasks
Maths – differentiated challenges and worksheets along with top tips for how we would teach the skill in school and links to the Oak national academy. (We will also resend the visual reminders which support the children’s learning in school)
Science/History/Geography/RE – links and suggestions to meet a skill in this subject area which could be presented as a fact file, a poster or a drama/hot seating or oral presentation.
Of course don’t forget to read with your child and remind them to use their phonics skills, play phoneme spot together (ai in rain) and tricky word snap (we will resend these after half term, they are words where phonics doesn’t work such as we, he, the).
Please don’t think you need to complete all the comprehensions and maths worksheets, there will be different questions to match different skills levels and you can help your child to find the right one from them.
The weekly email will continue to give you the learning for the entire week as opposed to daily tasks, which is the practice in some schools. This reflects the way we work as a school and gives you the flexibility to engage in the learning when it is convenient for your family.
The online resource ‘Purple Mash ‘has been made free to parents.
As a staff team we have not had training so we will not be setting learning tasks but it is a safe place for children to explore different aspects of computing through games, art, music, number, literacy and science. Inside there is ‘Mini-Mash’ which has lots of Early Years resources. If you would like access to this resource, please contact Mrs Pratt by email and she will set up access for you.
Mrs Pratt can be contacted on epratt@wheatfieldsinfants.herts.sch.uk
We are really hopeful that this phase of opening will lead to a further widening of provision for our school community. Unless the government changes its guidance and allows us to increase numbers each class, we currently do not have the capacity for any more year groups. However, we only hear of the government’s plans at the same time as you, so please bear with us. If we are advised against opening on 1st June we will let you know our revised plans. Even if we do not open for Reception children, key worker and vulnerable children will still have a place with us from 1st June onwards.
Stay well and keep safe,
Keep Smiling
Miss Clare Cockburn and the staff team
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News from Today
Mon 11 May 2020Monday, 11th May 2020
Dear Parents and Carers,
I hope that this letter finds everyone safe and well and that you managed to enjoy the warm sunshine over the weekend and had a drink to commemorate VE Day.
I am sure that following the Prime Minister’s statement yesterday evening that you, like us, will have many questions. At this point in time, schools have no more information than the general public and we await further clarification on the announcement that we may be open to both Reception and Year One pupils from June 1st, after the half term break.
In the meantime, we continue to follow the existing guidance and school will continue to be open for the children of keyworkers whose work is critical in the COVID 19 response. This has been working very well so far.
We expect that the Department for Education will be issuing more detailed information in the coming days.
Please be assured that we will be doing our utmost to be as well prepared as possible to ensure that any return to school is as safe as possible for children and staff.
As always, we will keep you informed but for now, please try not to worry. In the meantime, we plan to continue to provide the suggested home learning activities as we have been via the weekly emails, keep in contact with our school community and support each other through these very challenging times.
Stay Safe,
Kind regards,
Miss Clare Cockburn
Headteacher
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News from this week
Fri 01 May 2020Dear Parents,
A quick note to all our families and friends from our school community to let you know that you are not far from our thoughts and we are hoping you are managing to stay safe and well during these strange times.
Where has the sun gone!! I have gone back to my warmer clothes particularly when walking my dog Copper. It is lovely to see some of you whilst I am out walking by myself or with my family. I am out each Thursday night clapping and cheering for our NHS workers and I know my sister who is a Nurse really appreciates all the support.
Next Friday it is 75 years since VE day. An opportunity to do some history (Miss Matthews will be pleased) to discover why it is a day to celebrate and may be raise a glass in remembrance.
Staff have been really enjoying seeing all the pictures, emails and video clips you have been sending in. Please do keep them coming in and feel free to email your class teachers if you need any further help or support. We have been advised by HCC to move away from using Zoom and therefore we will be looking to set up using Microsoft Teams instead. This is a new piece of technology for staff so please bear with us whilst we train ourselves in setting up this new system. I will keep asking staff to update the website class page regularly, and to continue with their stories through this platform in the short term.
Many thanks to all of you who entered the Easter Egg competition. As always it is hard to choose winners from such fantastic entries. The winning designs fro each group were Ella in Nursery, Charlie in Reception, Emilie in Year 1,Vinnie in Year 2 and Amelia in the Juniors. We will shortly be putting all those children entries on the website under the FOWI page. Well done
For those children who like colouring you could enter a design a bear competition. The closing date for this competition is 5pm on May 8th 2020. So not long!!!
I hope you will enjoy reading some of the poems from the Poetry Book that Miss Morgan has collated for you all. This has been sent to all families via email. There will be some hard copies of the book in the library once we return to school. Perhaps you will be inspired to write some more of your own!! We would love to read them if you do write some.
Keep saving those crisp packets as we had an email this week saying that not only were we helping our environment by reducing landfill but we had also raised £50. Thank you!
Thinking of you all
Take Care and Keep Smiling
Miss Cockburn and the Staff Team
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