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St. John’s Walworth CE Primary School

Larcom Street, Walworth, London SE17 1NQ

Headteacher: Mr Matthew Velada-Billson

Deputy Headteacher (Interim): Ms Nicola Bishop

Pastoral Manager: Ms Vanessa Mincher

Business Manager: Mrs Kelly Robinson

Tel: 020 7703 4920

Email: office@stjohnswalworth.southwark.sch.uk

Web: stjohnswalworthprimary.co.uk

20th April 2020

Dear Parents and Carers,

Welcome back to the new term in these unprecedented times.

Stay Safe Keep Well

We hope you and your family are well and that you will be in touch with the school about any questions you have for the new term. I have included an update about what we in school have been doing to support families, including families of essential workers and others at the end of last term and going forward for the foreseeable future. We have heard the 'lockdown' and school closure will last for at least another three weeks. We do not know yet when there might be a partial re-opening of schools.

'Hub School' Provision

Pupils whose parents are key workers and/or vulnerable are attending St Georges Primary School, our local ‘hub' school. It has been staffed by teachers and support staff from St John’s and St George’s. Across the holiday period children have attended safely and happily and continued learning/accessed daily childcare. If you are a key worker and you require a place at St George’s please email the school at office@stjohnswalworth.southwark.sch.uk, alternatively please inform your child’s teacher when they call you each week.

Keeping in Touch

We have quickly developed the schools' responses to the pandemic. Since the school 'closure' was announced our staff have been contacting every family on the phone to set a time and day each week where ongoing phone calls can occur. We hope that the phone calls will enable you to remain in touch with the school and provide you and your child with an opportunity to discuss successes or challenges associated with the work that is being set. Every teacher has also set up a class blog, which you will have received the website address for:

Reception/Year One:

Year Two:     

Year Three:   

Year Four: :             ​

Year Five:   

Year Six:

The purpose of the blogs is to set daily work activities for children, to provide a forum for messages to be sent directly to the teacher, and to provide a forum where children’s work can be showcased and celebrated. Links to class blogs can also be found on our website through the ‘news’ drop down menu. Key resources and summary information will be uploaded on our school website whenever new information is released from the DfE. The most important element of this support for learning at home is to maintain contact between your child and their teachers whilst the school is closed.

Supporting Learning at Home

In the last few weeks of last term we made significant efforts to make sure there was an on-line curriculum, and that families who cannot access the internet had curriculum materials sent to their homes in hard copy so that every child had access to learning materials. Many have taken the opportunity to continue with their learning and have been in dialogue with their teachers.

Today (20-04-2020) BBC Bitesize has launched a major expansion of resources. They are available on terrestrial television BBC4 from 7 to 9 every evening as well as on the BBC website. This will be available for the next 14 weeks.

Free School Meal Entitlement

We have worked very hard across the school holiday to make sure that all families whose child has a free school meal receives this entitlement. We have worked tirelessly with the Department for Education Voucher Portal and despite the many problems nationally, to the best of our knowledge all of our eligible families will have received their vouchers. Please rest assured that we will continue to work with the DfE’s EdenRed system to make sure you will get your entitlement. Please do alert us if you have had any problems accessing these vouchers via email at office@stjohnswalworth.southwark.sch.uk, alternatively please inform your child’s teacher when they call you each week. For a small amount of families, where needed, we have also provided food vouchers purchased from Southwark council. All children attending St George’s ‘hub’ have had a hot meal provision.

SATs Testing (Year 2 and Year 6)

The DfE have advised that the 2019/20 national curriculum assessments will not take place due to the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic. Teacher’s assessments of children’s attainment/predicted attainment will most likely replace the formal statutory tests that would have been administered during May 2020. We will share further guidance with parents/carers as it is released.

The future

We pay particular and detailed attention to all the formal advice we are given, act on it promptly and share it with staff, pupils and you the parents as soon as we have responded. We will continue to do that for the foreseeable future.

Thanks

We would like to acknowledge and thank all of our staff who have worked so hard and effectively during the last few weeks as the country engages in the mission to restrict the spread of Covid 19 and protect the NHS so that it has the capacity to support all of those who have unfortunately contracted the virus. We know that following the core advice @GOVUK is making a difference to the spread of the virus. We are grateful for all the support we have received from the parent and student community, whether it is their enthusiastic engagement with online learning, children attending the ‘hub’ safely so their parents can do essential work, or the offers of help and support with the new world of home learning.

I wish you all the very best in these challenging times. Do get in touch with us if we can support further.

Yours sincerely,

Matthew Velada-Billson

Headteacher

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