Latest News
Keep up to date with all the latest news happening in school at the moment.
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Alternative Activity Menus - now uploaded!
Sun 28 Jun 2020You can now visit the Children's School Closure Home Learning page for the Alternative Activity Menus! Instead of English and maths, we have created 5 menus of activities for you to choose from. They cover Art, Nature, Sport, STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths) and Wellbeing. Click on the link below:
https://www.manorbrook.org.uk/school-closure-home-learning/
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A 'Thank You' from FOM
Tue 02 Jun 2020FOM have asked us to pass on their thanks to everyone in the school community who voted for us in the Ecclesiastical '2020 Movement for Good' awards initiative.
It was wonderful to receive the news from FOM today that we are amongst the lucky recipients of the £1000 award! So even at a time when FOM can't run their usual fundraising activities, they have still managed to acquire much needed funds for the school; we are so very grateful to them!
A special thank you to Helen Hall for nominating us, and to the FOM class reps and others who helped to spread the word. This is wonderful news, and has put a big smile on all our faces!
Information about the scheme can be found here: https://www.ecclesiastical.com/movement-for-good/
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Partial Reopening - Provisional Schedule for Returns
Fri 22 May 2020Dear Parents,
We have been preparing school for the partial reopening, which will take place after half term.
A more detailed letter outlining key information for parents regarding the reopening will follow during the half term break, but please find below our provisional scheduling for the return of certain classes to school.
Children of Key Workers
We will be open every day, Monday to Friday, for the children of Key Workers, from Monday 1st June onwards.
Children with a Social Worker or with a current EHCP
We will make arrangements directly with parents of these children.
Children in YR, Y1 and Y6
We will reintroduce these children in priority order, based on the capacity of the staff and premises to keep them safe. The priority order is as follows: Reception Class, then Year 1, then Year 6.
For these whole-class groups, we will be open from Monday to Thursday.
Only Key Worker children will be in school on Fridays.
The anticipated timings for the classes’ return to school are as follows:
w/c 1st June:
This will be a ‘trial’ week for us, to ensure our procedures are effective for keeping children and staff safe. The school will be open for Reception Class children only, for three days: Tuesday 2nd June to Thursday 4th June.
(Key Worker children will be in school all week as needed, from Monday 1st to Friday 5th.)
w/c 8th June:
We will be open from Monday to Thursday this week for children in Reception Class and Year 1, and hopefully for one group of Year 6 pupils as well.
We have planned to supervise the Reception and Year 1 children in ‘bubbles’ of 8 children, which significantly stretches our staff capacity, so we will only be able to confirm how many Year 6 pupils we can safely supervise each week once we have more definite numbers for Key Worker children and those in Reception and Year 1. This means that we will be dividing the Y6 cohort into groups that we hope to be able to invite into school on a weekly rota, so that all pupils will have some time with their peers.
w/c 15th June (and beyond, subject to changes in guidance for schools):
We expect arrangements to be the same as in the previous week, namely opening from Monday to Thursday, for Reception, Year 1 and hopefully for the next group of Year 6 pupils, too. Key Worker children will continue to come in for all five days.
Please be aware that will not be able to guarantee these arrangements. For example, higher numbers of Key Worker children, or unexpected staff absences, could leave us without the capacity to accommodate Y6 children, or possibly even some Y1 children. The teaching staff are committed to helping as many children as possible to return safely.
Planning for numbers
Thank you to all of you with children in YR, Y1 and Y6 who completed the previous survey, to tell us your initial thoughts about your children returning. We now need more concrete numbers, to aid us in our planning. If you have a child in these classes, you will receive a link for another survey very soon, and we would again appreciate a swift reply.
If you are a key worker with a child in Year 2, 3, 4 or 5 we will be sending a separate email explaining how you will be able to request a place.
If you are not a key worker, and have a child in Year 2, 3, 4 or 5, we will contact you regarding your child’s return to school once we have received guidance from the government or the local authority.
Thank you for your continued support.
Darren Stanley
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Phone Calls from Teachers to Families
Sun 03 May 2020Dear Parents,
Thank you so much for all your children's posts on the website blog. They have been a joy to read, and the teachers have thoroughly enjoyed the opportunity to communicate with their pupils.
Starting tomorrow, the teachers will also begin making phone calls to the families of all the children in their class. The calls will be made on a rolling basis, and will enable you and your children's teachers to touch base with one another. The aim is for teachers to call you once a fortnight. They will begin by calling those families whom they have not yet heard from via the school blog on this website.
Please be aware that the teachers' calls will come through as hidden numbers, as they are largely working from home. Please don't worry if you miss their call or do not answer (we understand that many people prefer not to answer calls when they cannot see who is calling); your child's teacher will leave a message letting you know when they will call you back. Wherever possible, they will make the calls during normal school hours (between 9.00 am and 3.30 pm).
If you have more than one child at the school, the first teacher to call you will ask you if you want to be contacted by your other children's teachers. They will then inform their colleagues accordingly.
I know the teachers are looking forward to catching up with you in the days to come.
Kind regards,
Darren Stanley
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Who sees what goes on the School Blog?
Tue 21 Apr 2020Dear parents,
All the staff have thoroughly enjoyed reading your posts on the school blog, and seeing what you have been doing with your children at home.
I was asked by a parent for some additional clarity regarding who can see the posts on the blog. Please remember that in my previous message I said children’s posts should only be submitted once you have checked them and have given them permission to post them. (This also applies to their comments about other posts.) When a message or comment is sent, it remains hidden from children and other visitors to the site until it has been approved by a member of staff such as the class teacher.
Once it has been approved, a post becomes visible on the blog; it can be read by a child’s fellow pupils and by anyone else who visits the website. It will appear with the child’s first name and the initial of their second name.
In the same way, comments made about other posts are not immediately visible, but once they have been approved by a teacher, they can be seen by anyone who clicks on the ‘Comments’ link above a particular post.
Thanks again for the wonderful posts you have allowed your children to share so far.
Mr Stanley
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Home learning Packs and the Class Blog
Sat 18 Apr 2020Dear Parents,
I hope you and your families are well. I am writing to update you on our arrangements for helping the children to learn at home over the coming term.
Home Learning Packs
We have finished making the home learning packs that I referred to in my previous message to parents. They will be distributed to your homes over the weekend, with the kind help of a number of staff members and parent volunteers. The packs will include workbooks we have purchased to support English and maths learning, along with supplementary booklets made in school over the Easter period.
Weekly Learning Schedules
Each week, your child’s class teacher will post a selection of activities for the following week in the form of a weekly schedule. As I mentioned before, all these activities are suggestions: optional, not compulsory. Dip into them as you wish, and do as many or as few of them as your particular circumstances allow. You will find the weekly learning schedules on the website by clicking on ‘Children’ then ‘School Closure Home Learning’.
Class Blogs
I am also pleased to inform you that we have also added a class blog section to the school website.
Class teachers will post a message to their class as a whole group once or twice a week on the blog, to touch base with the children in general terms and recreate something of the sense of community that makes class life so special. (The teachers are missing their classes, too!)
All children will receive a login and password for the class blog. We will be sending these via the Teachers to Parents email system. Once children are logged in, they will be able to message their teacher. They can send photos of the learning they have been doing at home, along with little messages. Teachers will need to approve all messages before they can appear publicly on the blog. They will aim to do this each weekday (not weekends), but please remember that teachers are also busy with other school work, both in school and at home, as well as looking after their own families and managing their own health needs, so there might be days when this is not possible.
Teachers will comment briefly on children’s posts where appropriate. They will also be able to answer questions about children’s learning to help them with their efforts at home. Please note that children should not be sending their teacher any photos or messages without your permission and without you checking them first. It is your responsibility as the parent to ensure photos contain nothing inappropriate. (e.g.pupils should be fully dressed.)
(Please also note that as with our Facebook page, we intend this blog be a positive, supportive forum for celebrating and assisting children’s learning. Any inappropriate use of the blog (by children or parents) will not be tolerated.)
To access the class blogs, visit the website, click on ‘Children’ then ‘School Closure Blogging’. Your child can then click on the link for their own class.
Teachers will be familiarising themselves with the new blog at the same time as the children, so we expect it will take a while for routines to settle into place in terms of how it is used. However, we are very pleased that we will be able to communicate with our children, and we look forward to hearing about the learning they have done at home.
If you have not received your child’s login details by the end of Monday, please email the office on enquiries@manorbrook.org.uk, and we will get the details to you. Set up arrangements are almost complete at our end, and we hope to have all class teachers active on the blogs by next Wednesday, April 22nd.
In the meantime, I would like to take this opportunity to wish you and your families all the very best, on behalf of all of us in the Manorbrook team.
Darren Stanley
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Arrangements for Home Learning for the Summer Term
Sat 04 Apr 2020Dear Parents,
I hope and your families are keeping well in these unprecedented times. As we break for the Easter holiday, I am writing to update you regarding our plans for supporting the children’s learning going forwards.
From the start of next term, teachers will be setting work for their classes on a weekly basis.
When considering how to support families with helping their children to learn at home, we considered a number of factors:
- Many parents are still working at home, and are consequently busy throughout the day;
- Not all families have suitable technology or internet access to learn online, and in some households, the laptops, tablets etc. are being used for other things, e.g. working from home, meaning children can’t access them;
- Not all parents feel equally confident at teaching their children.
Therefore, we intend to provide work in a way that gives families consistency from week to week and allows children to access some of the tasks without the need for large amounts of input.
Class pages will be added to the website, on which teachers will publish a weekly selection of learning activities.
These weekly schedules will include activities in maths and English as well as a selection of additional tasks from other areas of learning, designed to be enjoyable and manageable. To avoid the over-reliance on online learning, we have ordered workbooks for the children to use, in both maths and reading comprehension (Reception and Y1 children will have phonics workbooks rather than comprehension books). In school, we will also be making additional workbooks over the Easter break, which will provide weekly spelling and handwriting practice, and some opportunities for paper-based practice of times tables and number bonds.
This means each child will have a paper-based pack of learning materials to use at home through the summer half-terms, which will be supplemented on the weekly schedule by links to online learning activities (for example in maths) for those who want them and can access them.
We appreciate that all children’s home circumstances are different, so there will not be any formal expectation of completion attached to the activities; the teachers will provide the weekly schedules of work through the summer half terms, then families can then do as much of the weekly work selection as their circumstances allow.
Teachers will also message their classes weekly on the website to touch base with the children.
Towards the end of the Easter holiday period, once the learning packs are ready to go, we will be asking for volunteers to help deliver them around their area as part of their daily walk. This will take some organisation, including GDPR matters, and we will message you with further details about this later in the holiday. We also appreciate that certain families live further afield and may not be on anyone’s exercise route. We will contact those people to make other arrangements.
Best wishes to you and your loved ones for a healthy, happy holiday period.
Darren Stanley
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Important Message from the Head for Key Workers requiring school provision for pupils
Thu 02 Apr 2020Dear Key Worker Parent/s,
Manorbrook will be remaining open during the Easter holiday period, to provide ongoing care for the children of our Key Worker parents. Please note that we will not be open on the Friday or Monday of the bank holiday weekend.
If you need us to look after your child on a given day, please will you email us the previous day on enquiries@manorbrook.org.uk so we know how many children to expect. Even if you have already told us your expected shift pattern or work days, we would still appreciate an email to confirm your child will be coming in.
This will enable us to adjust staff numbers accordingly and keep as many staff members as possible safe at home.
A polite reminder that children should only come in to school when parents need to leave home to carry out their critical roles and have no way for their children to be cared for safely at home.
Best wishes to you all.
Darren Stanley
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Please see below for ways to contact the school and support us with current staffing reductions.
Mon 23 Mar 2020In order to reduce staffing at school and minimise risks further, the office will not be manned throughout the school day. Any non-urgent calls and messages should instead be directed to our school email: enquiries@manorbrook.org.uk
If you have an urgent message for school, which needs immediate attention, then you can still reach us on the main school number as usual and leave a voicemail message for our attention. This will be monitored regularly.
Many thanks, in advance, for your co-operation and support at this challenging time.
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Letter from the Head regarding amended school provision for the children of Key Workers
Sun 22 Mar 2020Please see our Coronavirus Information and Updates page, for a letter from the Head with guidance about amended school provision for the children of Key Workers.
