This is not the start of term that I would have wanted, or indeed that I expected given Government assurances at the turn of the year that schools were a priority and that primary schools would remain open.\u00a0 However, we find ourselves in lockdown 3 and working exceptionally hard once again to meet the needs of all in our school community.\u00a0 Do please be aware that the staff in the office are exceptionally busy fielding calls and emails on an enormous range of issues.\u00a0 Occasionally it may take time to get through on the phone, and requests made by phone which require a response by email may take some time to action given the current workload.\u00a0 Your patience with and politeness to our colleagues in the office is appreciated.<\/p>\n
Equally, all classroom staff are now operating in two learning environments; the real here in school and the virtual on-line.\u00a0 This is alongside planning and resourcing all of the children\u2019s learning and then assessing the work that is submitted by all of the pupils. \u00a0Families who are learning remotely are asked to pose any questions about learning tasks using the chat function on Microsoft Teams rather than \u2018dialling in\u2019 using the call function.\u00a0 Teaching staff will then work through the requests as they come in with replies that may be through the chat or the call function as appropriate.\u00a0 Please remember that colleagues are juggling a number of demands with their classes, so responses to queries will not be immediate.<\/p>\n
Having both professional and domestic experience of remote learning, I know that it is challenging for families and can at times be stressful.\u00a0 Please be assured that all colleagues are working as hard as they can, and are constantly exploring new avenues of learning and communication which may take some time to bed in, so again your patience and politeness is appreciated.<\/p>\n
With this latest enforced partial school closure we are seeing immediate high demand for in-school places to allocate to the children of key workers and those deemed vulnerable.\u00a0 Indeed the anticipated pupil numbers on site could very soon be so high as to defeat the very purpose of a partial school closure as a means of securing social distancing and household lockdown.\u00a0 Therefore, please remember that in-school provision should only ever be used by those who qualify where it is absolutely necessary, and where adults are engaged in essential work leaving them with no alternative but to send their child to school.\u00a0 Adults who work part time should only book on the days when they are at work, and families should try their utmost to secure domestic arrangements before reverting to booking a school place.\u00a0 Whilst this may sound restrictive, it is an essential element of keeping the school site, with the children and the staff in it, as safe as possible.<\/p>\n
Finally, looking back to last term, may I offer huge thanks and congratulations to all in St Peter\u2019s for all the fundraising they undertook.\u00a0 The staff raised \u00a3107 for Macmillan nurses through a socially distanced coffee morning in September, Year 4 raised over \u00a340 for Guide Dogs, the school raised an impressive \u00a3605 for the Royal British Legion Poppy Appeal, and over 400 cans of food were donated to the school to pass on to the Waterlooville Food Bank.\u00a0 Many thanks to you all.<\/p>\n
Mr R Cunningham
\nHeadteacher<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
This is not the start of term that I would have wanted, or indeed that I expected given Government assurances at the turn of the year that schools were a priority and that primary schools would remain open.\u00a0 However, we find ourselves in lockdown 3 and working exceptionally hard once again to meet the needs […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":52,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.stpeterswaterlooville.co.uk\/headteacher\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/825"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.stpeterswaterlooville.co.uk\/headteacher\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.stpeterswaterlooville.co.uk\/headteacher\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.stpeterswaterlooville.co.uk\/headteacher\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/52"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.stpeterswaterlooville.co.uk\/headteacher\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=825"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blog.stpeterswaterlooville.co.uk\/headteacher\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/825\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":826,"href":"https:\/\/blog.stpeterswaterlooville.co.uk\/headteacher\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/825\/revisions\/826"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.stpeterswaterlooville.co.uk\/headteacher\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=825"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.stpeterswaterlooville.co.uk\/headteacher\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=825"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.stpeterswaterlooville.co.uk\/headteacher\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=825"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}