Latest News

2023-24 Academic Year

Wed 09 Nov 2022

Next academic year

I was recently contacted by Waltham Forest about the pressure on school places in the Chingford Green and Endelbury wards in the Borough. They are investigating ways of increasing capacity and as a short term solution I have offered to take a ‘bulge’ class for next year’s Reception intake. This means there will be 90 places instead of 60. This has now been confirmed as an initial one year arrangement. We did this once before and it had very little impact on the day to day running of the school.

Here are the school dates for the 2023-24 academic year.

Autumn Term

Weds 6^th Sept 2023 – Pupils return to school

Mon 23^rd Oct to Fri 27^th Oct – Half Term

Thurs 21st Dec – Last day of term

Spring Term

Monday 8^th Jan 2024 - start of term

Mon 12^th Feb to Fri 16^th Feb – Half Term

Thurs 28^th Mar – Last day of term

Summer Term

Mon 15^th Apr – start of term

Mon 6^th May – bank holiday

Mon 27^th May to Fri 31st May – Half Term

Fri 19^th Jul – Pupils last day of term

Covid Update April 2022

Thu 28 Apr 2022

Covid Update April 2022

This letter summarises the new guidance; reviews our local position on infection prevention and control principles; and describes the changes in our notification process.

Key changes in national public health guidance from 1 April 2022:

Testing. The end of free access to testing, both LFD (rapid testing without symptoms) and PCR (lab testing with symptoms). While some testing remains in place for health and care staff, it is unlikely this would apply to any pupils or staff across the educational sector, aside from the very clinically vulnerable. LFDs tests can be bought in pharmacies and supermarkets; however, it is not recommended that children and young people are tested for COVID-19 unless directed to by a health professional.

Symptoms. The list of symptoms of COVID-19 (and other respiratory infections) has been expanded and now includes shortness of breath, unexplained tiredness, lack of energy, muscle aches or pains that are not due to exercise, not wanting to eat, headache, sore throat, stuffy or runny nose, diarrhoea, feeling or being sick, a continuous cough, high temperature, fever or chills, and loss or change in your sense of taste or smell. If pupils or staff members experience any of these symptoms, you should follow the advice below.

Children under 18 with symptoms. Children and young people with mild symptoms such as a runny nose, sore throat, or slight cough, who are otherwise well, can continue to attend their education or childcare setting. Children and young people who are unwell and have a high temperature should stay at home and avoid contact with other people. They can go back to school and resume normal activities when they no longer have a high temperature and they are well enough to attend i.e. their temperature does not need to be controlled by medication. If you are worried about a child, then you should seek medical help. If a child with symptoms comes into school, they should be sent home immediately.

Adults with symptoms. Adults who have respiratory symptoms (any listed above) and who have a high temperature or do not feel well enough to go to work or carry out normal activities, should stay at home and avoid contact with other people until they no longer have a high temperature (if they had one) or until they no longer feel unwell. It is particularly important to avoid contact with vulnerable people at risk of becoming seriously unwell due to COVID-19 or respiratory infections if you have any symptoms. If a staff member with symptoms comes into school, they should be sent home immediately. If they can work from home and are fit to do so as their symptoms are mild, they should work from home; if they are not fit to work from home they must be reported as sick. If they cannot work from home, they must remain off work for at least five days.

Positive test results. All adults with a positive COVID-19 test result are advised to stay at home and avoid contact with other people for a minimum of 5 days. Children and young people aged 18 and under who have a positive test result should stay at home for a minimum of 3 days. This advice is regardless of symptoms. After this period, children/staff should not return to the school until they feel well and do not have a high temperature. Staff/pupils with a positive test result who come into school before this period should be sent home immediately.

Contacts. Children and young people who usually go to school and who live with someone who has a positive COVID-19 test result should continue to attend as normal, as long as they are well. Parents should be vigilant for any symptoms and if a child develops these, they should be kept at home as per the above bullet points.

It is really important that anyone who feels unwell does not come to school – this will help to reduce the risk of transmission.

GoFundMe page for our Kevin the Peacock memorial

Thu 25 Mar 2021

Hello

The PTA have started a GoFundMe page as one of the ways we are going to raise money to build a memorial to Kevin. If you would like to donate then the address is

https://uk.gofundme.com/f/krs52f

RSE Draft Policy - parental Consultation

Mon 08 Feb 2021

Under newsletters is our new draft policy for Relationships and Sex Education, including the program of study. Parents are now invited to read the document as part of a parental consultation. If you have any feedback or questions, please email office@yardleyprimary.co.uk with the heading RSE. The consultation period starts from today (Monday 8th Feb 2021) and will close on Monday 22nd Feb 2021. The policy and program of study are intended to come into effect from the Summer Term 2021.

Guidance and Expectations for Remote Learning

Mon 11 Jan 2021

During the week beginning 11^th January - Teachers will conduct a minimum of 2 live maths lessons and 2 live English lessons for each child. This will increase to 3 maths and 3 English lessons per week from the 18^th January. It is really important that children attend these when they are timetabled. If your child is too ill to attend or has a valid reason why they are unable to take part, please email the teacher to let them know in advance. School staff will be contacting parents if children are not attending their timetabled sessions

Some basic etiquettes for the live lessons:

Please join the session on time so they can start promptly. Teachers are conducting these lessons in small groups which means they are teaching multiple group sessions in the day so it is important that they start on time.
Be dressed appropriately – some children have appeared online in pajamas last week. It will be important for children to have some kind of routine over these coming weeks and getting up early and getting dressed is part of that.
Do not record lessons.
Children to put themselves on mute unless instructed otherwise.
For younger pupils, parents supervising will obviously be helpful. It would be preferable if parents (and any siblings) could try to stay off screen as much as possible.

Each child will be set daily work for English, Maths and at least one other subject. We also expect children to do a minimum of 15mins daily exercise. Teachers will send out links to the 5 a day website which the school subscribes to which has short, fun workout routines. There is also the expectation that, in line with our normal homework policy, children read daily, practice spellings and practice their times tables (or other set number bonds).

As, for the majority of pupils, all work is going to be ‘homework’; other than reading, spellings and tables practice, no additional homework tasks will be set for pupils whether in school or at home.

We expect children to complete each of these daily tasks. At the moment, a small amount of children are picking and choosing which tasks to attempt and there needs to be the expectation from parents and pupils that all work set is completed. Teachers will be actively available during the normal school hours of 9am to 3.30pm to interact with pupils via Seesaw, Google Meet and email. After this time they will be marking and preparing activities so may not be directly available.

Yardley is in the same situation as all schools in the country, in that we have needed to completely reconfigure how we teach our pupils at very short notice but we were well placed to move to remote learning with everything we put in place earlier last year. With the additional aspect of live lessons, there may be a few glitches along the way. If you are having any problems with the remote learning then please contact your child’s teacher. If you have any suggestions on how we can further enhance our remote learning as we move forward then, please feel free to email them in.

Information for September 2020 can be found under newsletters

Wed 15 Jul 2020

Information for parents bringing children to school from June 1st

Fri 29 May 2020

Hello

This information is for children in Nursery, Reception, Year 1 and Year 6 who have informed us that their children will be returning to school from Monday 1^st June and for the parents of those keyworker children that have been attending over the last 10 weeks.

Please refer to the previous document with regards the health, safety and hygiene measures that will be in place. This document is to let you know the practicalities of bringing your child to school from 1^st June

From Monday, children in the eligible year groups can return if they have told us they are coming. We look forward to welcoming some of you back to school. However, there will be some changes. Firstly, due to the guidance of having groups no bigger than 15, demand means we will be running additional groups. Currently we will be running these groups;

Nursery – AM Nursery only

Reception – 2 groups

Year 1 – 3 groups

Year 2/3 Keyworker group – 1 group

Year 4/5 Keyworker group – 1 group

Year 6 – 3 groups

Therefore, a small amount of pupils from each class will not be with their own teachers in Year 1 and Year 6. Mrs Samuels will be leading the additional Year 1 group and Mrs Roberts/Mrs Stuart will be taking the additional Year 6 group. Pupils will be directed to their groups when they arrive on Monday morning.

To reduce the amount of parents on site we will be operating a staggered start times and finish times. If you are bringing in children from more than one year group bring them in at the EARLIEST time. Staff will be in classrooms to welcome children who may be arriving earlier with siblings and staff will be in the playgrounds helping children get to class promptly. Year 6 pupils must be accompanied to and from school with an adult, even if previously they came in on their own, but they will be dropped off at the main school gates.

Year	Start time	End time	Entry via
6	8.30am	2.30pm	Junior doors
Year 2/3 keyworker	8.45am	3.30pm	Hall doors
Year 4/5 keyworker	8.45am	3.30pm	Main school Entrance
Year 1	9am	2.45pm	Upper and lower Infant doors
Reception	9.15am	3pm	Class 13/14 doors
Nursery	8.30am	11.30am	Nursery doors

Classes will be exiting through the same doors they entered. Please remember to stay 2 metres apart when waiting for your children. Whenever possible, only 1 adult should come onto site and without siblings who are not attending school (unless in a pram of pushchair).

To help adapt to a one way system around the school grounds, please keep to the left at all times. There are arrows on the floor in the playground to help everyone follow this.

There will be no breakfast club, afterschool club or key stage 2 homework club.

Children of keyworkers in Reception, Year 1 and Year 6 will go back into their appropriate year groups from Monday and can be collected at 3.30pm like the other children of keyworkers. They will be supervised by one of the adults in their group after their classmates have gone home.

If your child has an asthma pump or epipen please ensure these come into school with your child on Monday. They will stay with them in the classroom.

PE kits should be in school.

Pupils should bring in a reusable and labelled water bottle as water fountains will not be in use.

Reading books will continue to come into school in the morning and back home at the end of each day.

There will be staggered lunchtimes and playtimes.

Parents should not enter the school buildings at anytime. If you need to talk to a member of staff, please make an appointment via the school the school office or the year group email addresses.

After an initial settling period, children in Nursery, Rec, Year 1 and Year 6 will return to a curriculum as close to the regular curriculum as before. For this reason, as under normal circumstances, we ask that pupils in these year groups attend each day Monday to Friday to aid continuity of learning.

The keyworker groups will continue with an adapted curriculum with time allowed for them to complete the activities on Seesaw which their own teacher has set.

A reminder for all parents that if you have not confirmed with the school that you are attending on Monday, please do not turn up as it may not be possible to accommodate you.

Finally, please remember that the school are having to make significant changes to how we operate, both physically and through providing online activities. It may be necessary to make changes once we see what works and what doesn’t but all decisions will be taken with the what is in the best interests for the children, both their safety and their education, as the foremost consideration.

Some answers to questions we have received about the document regarding June 1st

Thu 21 May 2020

Some clarification regarding questions parents have raised regarding the document about June 1^st and Nursery, Reception, Year 1 and Year 6 pupils coming in from that date.

Pupils in those eligible year groups will be able to come in after June 1^st but only to if we have spaces available and not without prior communication with the school. You won’t just be able to turn up in the morning if we don’t know you are coming as due to the group sizes we may not have the capacity to accommodate you.

A handful of parents indicated, that as one child in one of the eligible year groups will be coming back, they would like to send siblings in non-eligible year groups back as the parents now consider themselves ‘keyworkers’. I need to make it clear that we will not be taking in any additional pupils from Years 2, 3 ,4 or 5 on June 1^st. We will continue to have the children of keyworkers and pupils deemed to be vulnerable attend, as they have been for the past 10 weeks, but we will not have the capacity to suddenly accommodate more pupils whose parents for whom it has NOT been necessary to send their children in during this period. We will review this once we see what our keyworker pupil numbers are and in light of any changes to government guidance. If you genuinely feel your situation has changed and that you have keyworker status and need your child to be in school please contact me via the office@yardleyprimary.co.uk with the details but I cannot guarantee we will have spaces at the moment.

Finally, I know the fact that pupils may not be with their regular teacher is an emotional issue and one I wish we didn’t have to deal with but it is the reality of only being able to have pupils in small groups. However, please don’t not email teachers and request that your child is their group or can your child be put with specific pupils as the final decision will not be down to the class teachers to make. Once we establish which pupils are expected, and if there is a need for additional groups, I will sit down with the year group teachers and I will decide how we arrange each year group. We do have the capacity that any group will be taught by our current teachers from those year groups which are not in school. It is unlikely we will inform parents in advance which teacher their child will be in. If we do require more than 2 groups per year, there will be no way of doing it where I don’t upset some of you but all decisions will be made in the best interests of the children.

Advice for parents in Nursery, Reception, Year 1 and Year 6 regarding attending from June 1st

Wed 20 May 2020

Dear Parents,

As you know, some pupils will be returning to school on June 1^st. This is a tricky thing to organise. I’d like to add some detail to help you make your decision based on what it will be like in school. Please remember that the return only applies to children in Nursery, Reception, Year 1 and Year 6. All other children – apart from those in our key worker group (who will continue to attend as they have been doing) – will still stay at home for the time being.

Once you read this information, hopefully you will be able to make the decision about whether you intend for your child to return on June 1^st or not. If you know your decision it would benefit us greatly if you could email the relevant year1@yardleyprimary.co.uk , Reception@yardleyprimary.co.uk , Year6@yardleyprimary.co.uk email addresses to let us know what your decision is. On Tuesday 26^th and Wednesday 27^th May, staff members will begin to phone parents of children in relevant year groups where we have not had an email from to check whether their child will be attending or not. We will also contact Nursery parents by phone. PLEASE BE AWARE that you will not be able to bring your child into school without previously informing us that they are coming. This is because we need to stick to strict group sizes of less than 15.

Dropping off and collection

All children who come to school at this time will have to be delivered and collected by an adult. This includes Year 6 children who may be used to travelling to and from school on their own. We can only accommodate children who are brought to school and collected by an adult. This is to avoid the risk of any symptoms spreading from one group to another on the journey home and to prevent children gathering in or around the school grounds.

If your child wears a face mask on the journey to school, please make sure that you remove it before they come into class. Children will forget to look after them and we cannot have used face masks left on desks or chairs or needing to be picked up and thrown away.

The school day will be slightly altered to allow for staggered start and finish times. Each group will have staggered break times and lunchtimes. The start and finish times are likely to be;

8.30am – 2.15pm – Year 6 groups

8.45am – 3.30pm Years 2 to 5 keyworker children

9am – 2.30pm – Year 1 groups

9.15am – 2.45pm – Reception groups

The Nursery times will be decided once we have confirmed numbers.

It will be really important that parents stick closely to these drop off and collection times. We are lucky to have a large site but we need to limit the amount of adults coming into the grounds at any one time.

Whenever possible, only one adult to bring in children and to collect and no siblings to come onto the ground unless in a pram or buggy. Staff and markings will guide you around the ground

Group Structure

Children will be in the same group of between no more than 15 children with the same (in most cases 2) members of staff. Each group will spend the day together – including their break and lunch times. Children and adults from one group will not mix with children from another. This is to avoid the danger of any symptoms spreading from one group to another.

This means that not all children will be able to be with their current class teacher and some of their friends may be in a different group. Please take the time to explain this to your children before they return. It’s important that they understand that they may not be with their teacher and that they might not be mixing with some of their friends. I know that this will upset and disappoint some parents and children but it is unavoidable under the conditions we are being asked to work.

Social Distancing and hygiene

The government advice recognises that fully socially distancing small children is impossible. Instead, within their groups we will take every precaution at keeping them safe and operating as many hygienic controls as possible. These include but are not limited to;

Remaining in same group of children each day with same adults and no mixing across groups
Hands washed on entry to school, before and after each break and lunch and after any toilet breaks
All soft toys removed from classrooms. Any equipment used to be washed after use.
Increased cleaning of classrooms in use
Each group to have own set of play equipment (balls, hoops, skipping ropes etc) which are cleaned daily
No contact games, such as football, allowed
Pupils to have labelled drinks bottle brought in from home
Pupils to have labelled seat and desk and individual stationary (provided by school)
Groups to move around school grounds using outside routes rather than internal corridors
Lessons to take place outside when possible
Classroom windows to be open whenever possible to aid ventilation
No external visitors/contractors onto site unless there is an emergency

Year 6 pupils will be instructed to follow more rigid social distance measures.

Curriculum

After an initial short period of resettling and reassuring the pupils whilst they get used to new routines and arrangements, the children will be following the school curriculum as per normal. Teachers will continue to support the learning of those pupils who are not physically attending through Seesaw, regular phone calls and email.

Any suspected cases of Covid19

Pupils must not attend if they or their family member are showing any of the symptoms of Covid 19 including a new continuous cough, a fever or loss of smell and/or taste.

In the event of a pupil or member of staff showing symptoms, that person will be isolated until they can be collected and members of that group will be contacted. We will then follow advice from Public Health England on how to proceed.

Other notes

Pupils will be able to have a hot meal (usual charges will apply for Year 6 pupils having a school dinner). Groups will enter the canteen at staggered times, sit spaced apart and leave via the rear doors. We will continue to use disposable plates, cutlery and cups as we have been during over the last few weeks. Alternatively, pupils can bring in a packed lunch, which they should take with them to their classrooms.

School uniform to worn as normal and normal levels of behaviour will be expected.

It is recommended that pupils remove uniform and it is washed on a daily basis. Pupils should wash hands on returning home as per national guidance.

If possible, please avoid travelling to and from school by public transport.

We will not be able to provide Breakfast or After School Club at this time (apart from our key worker group). This is to avoid the risk of any symptoms spreading from one group to another. All children will need to be delivered and collected on time.

The school office will operate on an appointment only system. Appointments can be made via phone or email but otherwise it will be closed. Please do not go to the office without an appointment as regretfully, we will not be able to see you. Parents will not be able to enter the school buildings – nor will they be able to speak to the teacher in the morning or at home time. Please make an appointment, send an email or use Seesaw if you need to speak to your child’s teacher – this includes their group teacher or their usual class teacher.

I send you all my very best wishes and look forward to seeing some of you at least, very soon.

Mr Evans

Headteacher

She braved the shave!

Wed 06 May 2020

With all the hairdressers currently closed, Isabelle from Class 6 decided drastic action was needed, and she grabbed the chance to help others whilst doing so.

A target of raising £800 for NHS charities was set, the clippers were sharpened and off came her hair. So far Isabelle has raised an amazing £1000 -a fantastic effort, and we think she looks great.

I'm sure the whole Yardley community would like to congratulate Isabelle on a fantastic effort and if you would like to contribute, her fundraising page is: https://www.justgiving.com/fundraising/shavefornhs

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