COVID 19 Updates

Coronavirus (COVID19): Catch-up Funding Plan

Please click on the link below to access the ‘Coronavirus (COVID19): Catch-up Funding Plan’

https://www.roydnurseryinfants.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/Coronavirus_COVID-19_-Catch-up-Funding-Plan_Royd-Nursery-Infant-School.docx

Return to school – 08.03.2021

All the staff at Royd are really looking forward to welcoming back the children to school.

The Department for Education have stated that school attendance will be mandatory for all pupils from Monday 8th March 2021.

School will reopen following the latest COVID-19 operational guidance to minimise the risk of transmission in our school.  We will continue to maintain our current bubble system, with staggered timings throughout the school day and restricted movement around the premises.  From Monday 8th March 2021, the timings for the start and the end of the school day will be the same as they were in the Autumn term.  Please see below for your child’s start and end time.

• Please adhere to the staggered times to minimise congestion at the school gate.
• Please social distance (i.e. stand at least two metres) from people you do not live with
• Collect/ drop off children and leave promptly
• Please ensure pavements are clear for children to approach the school gates safely
  without them having to pass you within two metres.
• Where it is difficult to stay two-metres apart, please wear face coverings.
• If entering the school boundaries please wear a face covering
• Please ensure your child does not arrive any earlier than their time slot as this can lead
  to groups of children congregating outside the school building.

Providing remote education information to parents – Please click on this link to view file

Home learning (06.01.2021 – 05.03.2021)

During the current period out of school during the Coronavirus outbreak, supporting your child’s wellbeing is as important as supporting them with their academic progress.  School suggests you use the timetable below which creates a routine and plan for your child.  Following the timetable makes all the difference to the children’s learning and is a supportive and settling approach for the children during what may be an unsettling time for them.

Below are the Google Meets timetables for FS2, Year 1 and Year 2.  If you need any support accessing online learning and accessing the links needed, please email enquiries@royd.sheffield.sch.uk.

Foundation Stage 2

Each session is short and quick-paced for the children’s engagement.  All documents related to each session are uploaded onto Tapestry (https://tapestryjournal.com/) for you to download if you wish.  If you weren’t able to access the session, the activities are explained in the documents on Tapestry.  We also love seeing your work and activities on Tapestry and leave comments about the strengths of your child.  If you need any support with Tapestry, please email your child’s class teacher (Class One – hbrook@royd.sheffield.sch.uk or Class Two – ebrown@royd.sheffield.sch.uk).  Lexia (https://www.lexiacore5.com) is fantastic reading tool for children to practise their early reading skills.  If a child accesses 20 minutes each day, which is highly recommended, they will be able to make great progress.  If your child does Lexia at school, they have a log in that can be accessed at home too.  Again, if you need support with accessing Lexia, please email your child’s class teacher.

Year 1

All documents related to each session are uploaded onto Purple Mash (https://www.purplemash.com/sch/royd) for you to download if you wish.  If you weren’t able to access the session, the activities are explained in the PDF documents on Purple Mash.  We also love seeing your work and PE photos on Purple Mash.  If you need any support with Purple Mash, please email your child’s class teacher: Year 1- (Class 6 – lwatts@royd.sheffield.sch.uk or Class 9 – srawding@royd.sheffield.sch.uk).  Year 2- (Class 7 – kbamford@royd.sheffield.sch.uk or Class 8 – gterry@royd.sheffield.sch.uk).  Lexia (https://www.lexiacore5.com) is fantastic reading tool for children to practise their early reading skills.  If a child accesses 20 minutes each day, which is highly recommended, they will be able to make great progress.  If your child does Lexia at school, they have a log in that can be accessed at home too.  Again, if you need support with accessing Lexia, please email your child’s class teacher.

Year 2

All documents related to each session are uploaded onto Purple Mash (https://www.purplemash.com/sch/royd) for you to download if you wish.  If you weren’t able to access the session, the activities are explained in the PDF documents on Purple Mash.  We also love seeing your work and PE photos on Purple Mash.  If you need any support with Purple Mash, please email your child’s class teacher: Year 1- (Class 6 – lwatts@royd.sheffield.sch.uk or Class 9 – srawding@royd.sheffield.sch.uk).  Year 2- (Class 7 – kbamford@royd.sheffield.sch.uk or Class 8 – gterry@royd.sheffield.sch.uk).  Lexia (https://www.lexiacore5.com) is fantastic reading tool for children to practise their early reading skills.  If a child accesses 20 minutes each day, which is highly recommended, they will be able to make great progress.  If your child does Lexia at school, they have a log in that can be accessed at home too.  Again, if you need support with accessing Lexia, please email your child’s class teacher.

Staff Lateral Flow Testing Implications

School staff are being asked to test for coronavirus twice a week. If the tests are delivered on time, we will be starting week commencing 25^th January 2021. Staff will be using lateral flow devices that provide quick results.

By testing they will be helping to reduce the spread in school settings through asymptomatic transmission. Up to one third of people who have coronavirus are asymptomatic and have no symptoms.

We have been very fortunate so far in not having to shut ‘bubbles’ and we are hoping that this continues. However, parent/carers of children currently in school need to be aware that they may have a very short notice period to sort childcare. Please keep checking your emails and text messages every day, even during the evenings for notifications.

If a bubble does close, your child will have to isolate for 10 days at home. Parent/carers would at that point not have to isolate. If your child then develops symptoms the whole family would have to isolate and your child will need a test.

We are really hoping that these additional tests will have very limited impact on what we are currently offering but you need to be aware of potential issues.

Please bear with us and thank you for your continued support in these difficult times.

Vulnerable Children and Children of Critical Workers – Provision in school

This is proving our greatest challenge from a staff capacity point of view. We are aware that large numbers of our families require child care in order to do their own jobs and obviously we are committed to ensuring places are available. At present we have approximately half the children at school entitled to emergency care as critical workers. The Government last message was ‘parents and carers should keep their children at home if they can.’ This is to stop the transmission of the virus and the less children we have in school means less opportunity for the transmission to take place. If you do not need this emergency childcare please do not send your child to school and please access the remote online learning lessons.

Thank you to those parents who are supporting the school and the government guidelines and providing childcare using support bubbles and also working at home whilst teaching their children.

• Provision for children will be in a year group bubbles. We have over 20 in some year groups bubbles.
• Bubbles will be supervised by support staff / trainee teachers students and children will complete the same learning that is set as online/home learning.
• We will try to remain as flexible as possible with regards to critical worker shift patterns.
• Unfortunately, due to staff capacity, we are unable to offer places to parents of children with SEND who do not meet the safeguarding criteria.

The school has also made the decision to open Nursery as usual to all children. This is following Government advice and the data also shows that this year group has the lowest transmission rate.

Googlemeets meetings with class teachers

Googlemeets is an online conferencing software that we will use to provide six times a day, live, face-to-face sessions for each class. Feedback from the Spring was that children missed the opportunity to see their teachers and their peers and we hope that these sessions are helpful. It also gives all children access to high quality teaching input. Some of these sessions will be followed up with activities. These follow up activities can be accessed by FS2 / Reception via Tapestry and for Year 1 / Year 2 Purple Mash. We have decided to have six short sessions as we know that young children learn in short bursts.

With any live session, we are reliant on children behaving appropriately and we ask that you reaffirm this with your child prior to the meetings. Children need to be sitting up, dressed and ready to learn each day.

Each session will be approximately 20 minutes long and will have to end promptly as staff are sharing devices and there is a timetable so siblings can attend at other times.

With any new initiative, there may be teething issues so please bear with us. Please contact enquiries@royd.sheffield.sch.uk if you are experiencing any issues. A member of staff will then get back to you.

I’m incredibly proud how staff have reacted to this change. Staff will endeavour to provide feedback on Tapestry and Purple Mash on as many lessons as possible. When staff have made comments about the strengths of the child’s work please share this feedback. If there is an area that that your child could improve with their work please support your child to complete this improvement work and add it back onto the system.

Please try not to add work onto the systems after 5pm.

There will undoubtedly be technical issues. Please bear with us.

Hard copies of activities

We are asking all children to access the learning online rather than providing hard copies at present. We feel that through the apps, children can access the work better and teachers may alter the content of the lessons based on their assessment. This would not be possible if weekly booklets were issued as they were in the last lockdown. All parents have been asked whether they have access to the internet and a device to access the internet. Please contact the school office if you do not.

Home Learning Expectations

Some parents have explained that, due to their circumstances, it may be difficult for their child to access all of the home learning. This is absolutely fine. The feedback from the last lockdown was that some children would have benefitted from more interaction and live learning and this is what we have put in place. We are legally obliged to provide three hours of learning which is progressive and moves children’s learning on. I totally appreciate that this may have a consequence to parents. If your family feel that this is too much, please prioritise the reading, writing and maths sessions and do what you can. Unfortunately with so many families this is an occasion where we cannot please everyone but parents can choose how much is suitable for their particular circumstances. We are very aware that we have a wide variety of family circumstances within our community and appreciate the need for flexibility.

Queries

Please can you send any queries about home learning to enquiries@royd.sheffield.sch.uk or contact the school office or tell the class teacher during an online session so we can give you a call. A member of staff will respond to queries as soon as possible.

Positive COVID results

Please can you ensure that if your child is still attending school that the same procedure applies in informing us over any positive tests or close contacts. Please can we also remind you that if your child or anyone in your household displays symptoms they must have a test and self isolate until the test result comes back (then follow NHS guidance).

Survey

I will send out a survey for parents to provide constructive feedback over the next week.

The staff and myself would like to thank parents for all the extremely positive comments and support we have received since lockdown was announced. We have had parents contact Ofsted to praise what we are doing. We are all very grateful. Thank you!

I can’t promise that there won’t be further hurdles to overcome but I can promise that we have a committed team who are all working hard to do our absolute best to make our provision both in school and online the best it can possibly be.

I appreciate that this is a very long letter however I’m sure you will acknowledge the amount of information we have to pass on.

We have produced a Covid 19 absence guide for parents. This can be downloaded below

COVID 19 absences guide for parents carers what to do

The schools latest Covid 19 risk assessment can be downloaded here. Schools Covid Risk assessment

Guidance and support

Please click on the link to take you to the Covid-19 help and support page 

During the early hours the Government released the following guidance to schools confirming what roles are classed as a key worker and which children are vulnerable. The guidance also states that to further limit the spread of COVID-19 if children can stay safely at home, they should, to limit the chance of the virus spreading. This enables schools to remain open only for those children who absolutely need to attend. It is important to underline that schools, colleges and other educational establishments remain safe places for children. However, the fewer children making the journey to school, and the fewer children in educational settings, the lower the risk that the virus can spread and infect vulnerable individuals in wider society. Schools are therefore, being asked to continue to provide care for a limited number of children – children who are vulnerable and children whose parents are critical to the Covid-19 response and cannot be safely cared for at home. 

Vulnerable Children

Vulnerable children include children who are supported by social care, those with safeguarding and welfare needs, including child in need plans, on child protection plans, ‘looked after’ children, young carers, disabled children and those with education, health and care (EHC) plans.

Parents classed as key workers 

Parents whose work is critical to the COVID-19 response include those who work in health and social care and in other key sectors outlined below. Many parents working in these sectors may be able to ensure their child is kept at home and every child who can be safely cared for at home should be. Please, therefore, follow these key principles: 1. If it is at all possible for children to be at home, then they should be. 2. Parents should not rely for childcare upon those who are advised to be in the stringent social distancing category such as grandparents, friends, or family members with underlying conditions. 3. Parents should do everything they can to ensure children are not mixing socially in a way which can continue to spread the virus. They should observe the same social distancing principles as adults. 4. If your work is critical to the COVID-19 response, or you work in one of the critical sectors listed below, and you cannot keep your child safe at home then your children will be prioritised for education provision.

Health and Social care This includes, but is not limited to, doctors, nurses, midwives, paramedics, social workers, care workers, and other frontline health and social care staff including volunteers; the support and specialist staff required to maintain the UK’s health and social care sector; those working as part of the health and social care supply chain, including producers and distributers of medicines and medical and personal protective equipment. 

Education and childcare This includes nursery and teaching staff, social workers and those specialist education professionals who must remain active during the COVID-19 response to deliver this approach. Key public services This includes those essential to the running of the justice system, religious staff, charities and workers delivering key frontline services, those responsible for the management of the deceased, and journalists and broadcasters who are providing public service broadcasting. 

Local and National Government This only includes those administrative occupations essential to the effective delivery of the COVID-19 response or delivering essential public services such as the payment of benefits, including in government agencies and arms length bodies.

Food and other necessary goods This includes those involved in food production, processing, distribution, sale and delivery as well as those essential to the provision of other key goods (for example hygienic and veterinary medicines). 

Public Safety and National Security This includes police and support staff, Ministry of Defence civilians, contractor and armed forces personnel (those critical to the delivery of key defence and national security outputs and essential to the response to the COVID-19 pandemic), fire and rescue service employees (including support staff), National Crime Agency staff, those maintaining border security, prison and probation staff and other national security roles, including those overseas. 

Transport This includes those who will keep the air, water, road and rail passenger and freight transport modes operating during the COVID-19 response, including those working on transport systems through which supply chains pass. 

Utilities, Communication and Financial Services This includes staff needed for essential financial services provision (including but not limited to workers in banks, building societies and financial market infrastructure), the oil, gas, electricity and water sectors (including sewerage), information technology and data infrastructure sector and primary industry supplies to continue during the COVID-19 response, as well as key staff working in the civil nuclear, chemicals, telecommunications (including but not limited to network operations, field engineering, call centre staff, IT and data infrastructure, 999 and 111 critical services), postal services and delivery, payments providers and waste disposal sectors.

If parents think they fall within the critical categories above they should confirm with school that, based on their business continuity arrangements, their specific role is necessary for the continuation of this essential public service. If your school is closed then please contact your local authority, who will seek to redirect you to a local school in your area that your child, or children, can attend. The school will obviously contact you if this is the case and give you further details and information Can I please reiterate that you only send your child into school if you fall into these categories. If you are a family with only one parent in the key worker group can I suggest that you do everything possible for the other parent to have your child at home. It is very clear from the guidance that children will be most safe at home. As this situation continues it is going to put further pressures on staffing the schools.

Thank you

We would like to say thank you all for your support and understanding over the past few days. We appreciate you bearing with us when we haven’t been able to answer your crucial questions. It has been a difficult time for everyone, reacting to news as soon as the government has released it. We’ve been staggered by the truly amazing families and staff we have at our schools.

The offers of help and support we have been given has been humbling. The community spirit of Deepcar and Stocksbridge and Sheffield as a whole is well and truly alive.

In the following weeks please follow all the guidance that is released and take care of yourself and all your family members and the community we live in. We will be in touch with everyone as soon as we know anything. We wish you all the best in the difficult times ahead.

All the staff at Royd Nursery Infant School

We will keep you updated on all aspects of the COVID 19 situation including all the latest government advice.    

Talking To Children About Coronavirus

It helps to talk to children about anything they are concerned about. The following 2 sites offer great support with this.

https://childmind.org/article/talking-to-kids-about-the-coronavirus/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OPsY-jLqaXM

If your children are curious about how germs spread and how hand washing helps, take a look at the following 2 links.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YBGsoimPXZg

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_KirHm_sYfI[

Friday 20th March 

We would like to say thank you all for your support and understanding over the past few days. We appreciate you bearing with us when we haven’t been able to answer your crucial questions. It has been a difficult time for everyone, reacting to news as soon as the government has released it. We’ve been staggered by the truly amazing families and staff we have at our schools.

The offers of help and support we have been given has been humbling. The community spirit of Deepcar and Stocksbridge and Sheffield as a whole is well and truly alive.

In the following weeks please follow all the guidance that is released and take care of yourself and all your family members and the community we live in. We will be in touch with everyone as soon as we know anything. We wish you all the best in the difficult times ahead.

Coronovirus Letter Update 18 March 2020

Coronovirus Letter update 17 March 2020

Coronavirus – Information Letter