Keep up to date with all the news happening in the school at the moment. Articles are added during the week. Parents are encouraged to check regularly. Our weekly bulletin, emailed directly to parents, summarises content for the week.

• Confirmed case of COVID-19 in Nursery Dragonflies

  Sat 30 Jan 2021 Clare Haines

  We have been advised by Public Health England of a confirmed case of COVID-19 within our Nursery Dragonflies class bubble. A member of staff has tested positive. We wish her well. 

   

  Children in our Nursery Ladybirds class bubble, led by Mr McEvoy, are not affected because our Nursery is split into 2 separate containment bubbles. Nursery remains open to all children in Ladybirds. 

  Nursery also remains open to Dragonfly pupils who were not in Nursery on Thursday or Friday.

   

  Children in Dragonflies class bubble who attended Nursery on Thursday or Friday need to stay at home.  They can return to Nursery on Tuesday 9 February.

   

  We will switch to remote learning at home for children who have been asked to self-isolate.

   

  Close contacts have been identified and contacted by email today. This includes:

  • children who attended Nursery Dragonflies on Thursday and Friday
  • staff members who were in close contact.

   

  We are able to remain open for the rest of Dragonfly pupils as our staff now test twice weekly, this reduces the number of staff who need to self-isolate.

   

  We know that you may find this worrying but we are continuing to monitor the situation. We are working with Public Health England, following their requirements for schools and have informed the local authority.

  

• Parents, don't forget to look after yourselves!

  Fri 29 Jan 2021 Clare Haines

  Next week both in school and in our remote teaching we will be focusing on children's mental health. (Read my Latest News article for more details for how you can help your child at home.) During this pandemic it's important that you don't forget to look after yourselves.

  With the practicalities of day-to-day life, working from home and home schooling, it can be easy to forget to look after your own wellbeing needs,  which can lead to feelings of stress or being overwhelmed. 

  The Anna Freud Foundation has some useful hints and tips for parents and signposts how you can get further support if needed.

• Not sure where to upload? Class notebook too slow? Introducing 'assignments'

  Fri 29 Jan 2021 Clare Haines

  Earlier this week I wrote to you to share feedback and next steps from the parent and pupil survey on remote learning.

  • Remote learning, your views and next steps

  We are looking at long-term improvements to reduce some of the issues with class notebooks - including formatting, uploading work and slowness. The 'Assignments' tool should solve all these problems. 

   

  From Monday 22 February (after the half-term break) your child’s remote learning teacher will set ‘assignments’ for children in the class team. To access the assignments your child will need to click on the ‘assignments’ tab on the top tool-bar of the team to see work that has been set. They then should follow the instructions, including any links to video lessons. Once completed work can then be submitted to the teacher from the same place. Each piece of work will have a due date. Teachers will either give written feedback (as indicated in the timetable) verbal feedback in a live session or ask children to self-mark or reflect using a rubric. Your child will receive a notification in the ‘Assignment Notification’ channel to let you know work has been set, and when it has been seen by the class teacher. 

  From Monday 22 February links to lessons and any activity sheets will be removed from the weekly timetable. These will be added to each 'assignment'.

   

  More information:

  How to use assignments

  Microsoft - using class notebooks

   

  Some classes might start this earlier as a ‘trial’ to iron out any issues. If your child’s remote teacher is doing this they will add a post to the class team to let you know.

  

• Re-opening of schools from Monday 8 March, possibly

  Fri 29 Jan 2021 Peter Dunmall

  The Prime Minister announced that he hopes it will be safe to start the re-opening of schools from Monday 8 March. This is in response to national public health information and pressure on NHS capacity.

   

  For us:

  • Nursery, remains open to all pupils who are healthy and well;
  • school is open to children of key-workers and those who are vulnerable;
  • Breakfast Club, After-school Club and February Half-term Holiday Club are open to children who are learning in school;
  • all other pupils continue to learn at home through Microsoft Teams.

   

  Over 220 pupils are learning in school from Reception to Year 6. Class sizes are smaller for social distancing to reduce the risk of coronavirus infection being spread. There is no more space for any extra pupils.

   

  Staff who are working in school now take a coronavirus test twice a week. Lateral flow test kits are used at home to identify staff who are asymptomatic. We hope that this helps break the chain of infection and helps us to stay open to more pupils for more of the time. 

   

  Over 600 pupils are learning at home. Nearly every pupil joins their video lessons and completes work. Support from parents at home is amazing. We know the pressures, challenges and sacrifices that you are making. Thank you. Together we can keep going so that our children do not miss out on learning.

  • Latest News, Learning at home - thank you

   

  We continue to check and review the quality of our work. This includes listening to pupils, parents and teachers. After half-term, we will use new functions in Teams to improve learning at home.

  • Latest News, Remote learning, your views and our next steps

   

  I will write to you again as soon as we know more about the government's plans to re-open schools. We do not get any advance notice. When government ministers speak or make an announcement, we hear it the same as everyone else. This makes planning, preparation and decision making more challenging. We may re-open from Monday 8 March but it might be later.

  

• Supporting children's emotional wellbeing while learning at home

  Fri 29 Jan 2021 Clare Haines

  While learning at home some children may be experiencing a need to manage strong emotions. This is not surprising;  their usual day to day school life and relationships with friends have been disrupted.  Children may also be struggling to recognise the emotions and perspective of others at home in a busy family life. 

   

  On our recent home learning survey around two-thirds of children felt that they needed more support from teachers with emotional regulation (123 responses in total).

  This week our teachers will be reminding the children of all the strategies they have used to calm their amygdala during their MindUP lessons in school. Each teacher will post a video of a 'Brain-break' for the children to use. Find out more about our MIndUP curriculum here.

   

  Next week the charity Place2Be will be focusing on children's mental health. In school and through remote learning will will be helping children focus in on their own mental health and wellbeing. Teachers will be using some of their feedback sessions and assembly times to talk to children about strategies they can use if they are feeling overwhelmed. They may also have some learning planned linked to this. This will mean they might have less things to do for other lessons while we focus on mental wellbeing.

   

  On Place2Be's childrensmentalhealthweek.org.uk website there are also resources that you can use with your child at home; including activity ideas and an online assembly which will be available from Monday 1 February. 

   

  There are many ways that you as parents can help your child recognise and describe emotions and how they influence their thoughts and behaviour, here are just two examples you might like to try:

  • starting a daily ‘emotional check-in’: graphing feelings, choosing an emoji to match mood, writing in a diary with prompts. Here is a link to a Feelings Tracker you might find useful;
  • using sentence starters to promote discussion such as ‘The coronavirus period has made me feel ...’, ‘I am finding it hard to....’, ‘What keeps me going is...’ ’, ‘What I miss most is...’, ‘I am hoping that...’

   

  If your child has worries or concerns linked to learning at home, they can add their worries to our virtual worrybox at worrybox@fielding.ealing.sch.uk. 

  If you need any further support in supporting your child's emotions at home, you can contact Mrs Reehal our Learning Mentor at admin@fielding.ealing.sch.uk

• The Great Big Art Exhibition - Get involved

  Thu 28 Jan 2021 Clare Haines

  Museums and leading artists are inviting the British public to take part in what they hope will be the biggest art exhibition ever mounted.

  The Great Big Art Exhibition is being launched by Sir Antony Gormley, who is asking people to make an artwork at home and put in their window or garden.

  Find out more here https://firstsite.uk/ 

• PTFA: Simple ways to raise money for school

  Thu 28 Jan 2021

  The ongoing situation leaves us parents and PTFA with limited options for school fundraising events, so we would like to share simple ways you can raise money for school, simply by shopping online or checking with your company for employee contribution schemes.

  
  Sign up to:

  • Amazon Smile
  • Give as you live (Gayl)
  • EasyFundraiser
  • Employee Match funding or Payroll giving

  1. Amazon Smile: If you shop with Amazon please register and use AmazonSmile selecting your charity as "Fielding Primary School Parent Teacher And Friends Association". Amazon donates a percentage to Fielding PTFA, at no cost to you. It's easy to set up and takes 5 mins. AmazonSmile is available on most browsers and in the Amazon Shopping App to all AmazonSmile customers using supported Android devices. We have positive feedback from parents that it works well and over £300 has been raised for school funds.
  
  To set it up, use these simple instructions: Visit smile.amazon.co.uk. Sign in to your Amazon account. Choose our charity "Fielding Primary School Parent Teacher And Friends Association". https://smile.amazon.co.uk/ch/1036586-0. Start shopping! Add a bookmark for smile.amazon.co.uk to make it even easier to return and start your shopping at AmazonSmile
  To set up Amazon Shopping app:
  1) Make sure you're signed up for AmazonSmile (as shown above)
  2) Download or update to the latest version of the Amazon Shopping app for iOS or Android
  3) Open the app and find “Settings” in the main menu (☰)
  4) Tap on “AmazonSmile” and follow the on-screen instructions to turn on AmazonSmile in the app.
   
  2. Give As You Live (GAYL): Raise money from your purchases online by using Give As You Live (GAYL) with companies like John Lewis, Boots, Tesco, Sainsbury participating. It is a fuss free and totally FREE way of raising funds for the school by doing your online shopping. Go to https://www.giveasyoulive.com/ and create an account selecting Fielding Primary School PTFA as your charity. Download the Donation reminder for your desktop or laptop which reminds you to use GAYL while shopping online or on your tablet or smartphone, download the app. One parent has raised £50 from just running it on their laptop this year.
  
  3. EasyFundraiser: Similar to GiveAsYouLive, when you shop online, with over 4,100 of your favourite retailers, including John Lewis, Amazon, eBay, notonthehighstreet, you will raise FREE donations for Fielding Primary School PTFA. If you’re not already signed up, it only takes a few minutes, then you can begin using the easyfundraising website or app straightaway - simply shop online as normal. Visit our easyfundraising page to get started: https://www.easyfundraising.org.uk/causes/fieldingprimaryschoolptfa/?utm_campaign=raise-more&utm_content=s-e2
  
  4. Employee Match funding or Payroll giving: Get in touch with your employee about payroll giving or match funding schemes they run where the employer makes contributions. This has already been set up on platforms such as Benevity (which companies like Samsung, AstraZeneca, SAP, Microsoft Apple use) or Charities Trust.  Please check with your employer if they have a scheme in place. GSK for example donated £1500 to us last year through parents who work at the company. If you need further help to apply for the funding please get in touch fieldingptfa@gmail.com.
   

• REMINDER: Register for PTFA Meeting - Monday 1 Feb 2021

  Thu 28 Jan 2021
  This is a reminder that the PTFA will hold its first online meeting of 2021 this coming Monday - 1 February (three weeks later than planned). Whilst we realise all parents are juggling work, homeschooling, and a pandemic, it would be great if you could spare an hour to hear from Mr Dunmall on areas where the PTFA can support the school, but also discuss our plans in relation to the £28,000 fundraising target.  The morning session with Mr Dunmall will start at 10am via Zoom whilst the evening session will start at 8.30pm. Please register to join the meeting 10am (HERE http://bit.ly/3iyP7TC) or 8.30pm (HERE http://bit.ly/360aN60) Thank you once again for the continued support you have given to PTFA fundraising. 

• Fielding Nursery February Holiday Club

  Mon 25 Jan 2021 Tracy Cherry

  Bookings are open for the February half-term holiday club.

  We will continue to work in our protective class 'bubbles' to keep everyone as safe as possible.

  You can make your booking via Laser here  Please do be careful when booking your sessions, as we are unable to cancel, swap days or refund once holiday club bookings are made.

  If we are unable to open we will refund any fees paid in advance as holiday club is an optional ad-hoc booking. 

  Please ensure that sessions are paid for at the time of booking. Thank you

• Remote learning, your views and our next steps

  Mon 25 Jan 2021 Clare Haines

  We had 123 responses on our week 3  remote learning survey. Thank you for sharing your thoughts and your appreciation for the work teachers and other adults in school and at home are doing to help children to continue to learn at home. It was lovely to read such positive messages.

   

  You told us that changes we made after the last survey have resulted in noticeable improvements:  including timetabling, organisation and the amount of work set.

   

  In this survey you have asked us to think about:

  • use of Oak National Academy lessons;

    • we are using a 'blended learning approach'. This means some of our lessons use pre-recorded video lessons from Oak, while other sessions French, PE , music, phonics, Storytime are either live or pre-recorded by our teachers. We also use some of the BBC materials. The decision to use the Oak video lessons made available and suggested by the Department for Education was based on research and what makes the most difference to children's learning. Recent research from the Education Education Endowment Foundation and Ofsted highlight that live video lessons aren't always best. Giving and receiving structured feedback has more impact on children's learning.  Teacher's time is spent on delivering small group live structured feedback sessions daily. To move to live lessons means they would not be able to do this. We have asked teachers to think about how feedback sessions are delivered to make sure the children get the most from them.

  • reducing the amount of English work or giving more time to complete it;

    • we have asked teachers to think about how much English work, including writing is set and the time given to it. We know this work is taking children longer to compete at home than it would do in school. Over the next week you should see a slowing down of the English lessons. 

  • for pupils to have more time to see their friends as they miss the interaction;

    • we have asked teacher to schedule a reward assembly each week for the whole class (remote class) to get together, this is similar to what we do in school. This will give children the opportunity to see other children from their remote learning class.

  • more contact from teachers in school;

    • children have moved to new classes, some with a different, but known teacher from their year group. Teachers in school are teaching their new temporary class. We are mindful of workload for teachers and therefore have not asked teachers in school to make contact with the pupils at home.

  • some OneNote difficulties, for example uploading, working on the notebook page and differences in expectations for different year groups; 

    • class notebooks can be slow if your WiFi connection isn't stable;

    • teachers have taken the time to look at class notebooks from other year groups to see how other class notebooks are set up, this should lead to greater consistency;

    • inline with guidance from the Department for Education, children in key stage 2 (Years 3-6) are expected to complete more work online, whereas children in and early years (Nursery and Reception) and key stage 1 (years 1 and 2) should do more work away from the screen. This is why the the work is set up in a slightly different ways. For example children in Year 4 might be expected to write/type directly into the class notebook while a child in Year 2 may have sheets to download, complete away from the computer and then upload.

    • Longer term, we are looking at the other functions within Microsoft Teams to see how we can further improve the use of this.

  • spreading specialist lessons across the week or less work on these days;

    • to keep children in a routine, we have tried to keep our remote timetables as close to school timetable as possible. Children in school would usually complete French, music and PE in a morning or afternoon session. During this time teachers meet together to plan for the next week, this means they are not available for feedback sessions or to respond to any questions raised by children. We will keep grouping these session together, however we will reduce the amount of work that needs to be completed in other subjects on these days. 

  • more written feedback from teacher on work (some classes)

    • teachers have met in their year teams to talk about the amount of feedback they are giving and how;

    • teachers will show on the weekly timetable what work will be given written feedback and what work will be given verbal feedback;

    • where feedback from some teachers has been sparse, this will improve.

   

  You should see some of the changes I have mentioned above  from today, others may take a little more time.

   

  Emotional wellbeing

  We also asked children about the strategies they use to manage their emotions while learning at home and how thier teachers help them to do this. Only a third of children told us that their teacher had helped them with this. Some children are using regular screen breaks and some are using the strategies we talk about in MindUP lessons.

   

  This week teachers will record a MindUP brain break for your child to use when needed. Next week we will be taking some time to talk to the children about their mental health and wellbeing. Look out for my news article on this.