Dear parents/carers

During this time, it is vital that our children continue to read. Reading opens to the doors to so many opportunities and allows them to access all areas of the curriculum.
To support the children’s reading, AR has changed their licensing which means we are able to test at home.
Please find all the information about how to access it below.
If the text your child is reading is not on AR, please do not worry. The focus is reading, not testing. When your child is reading, you can ask them questions to support their learning. It does not all have to be done on AR.
If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact us. If the class teacher is unable to help contact us via the school email or Facebook page.
Keep safe and look after yourselves.

Please see below for the latest letter from the childhood immunisation team

From Durham Constabulary’s Cyber Protect Team:

With schools now being officially shut because of the COVID-19 outbreak, it is likely that there will be an increase of internet use for families and children over the coming weeks. With that in mind, here are some great tips for parents on setting up the right controls and privacy settings to ensure their child stays safe online. You can find these in detail in our ‘Parents Guide to Cyber Safety’ advice booklet which is attached to this email.

The booklet looks at the following areas:

Smart Devices
They are a number of different ways to secure your child’s device within the phone settings. Some of these are turning off location settings, blocking inappropriate content and disabling app purchasing.

Broadband & Mobile Networks
Did you know you can restrict certain websites on devices connected to your home router? You can also use these settings to make the home Wi-Fi unavailable to a device after say 9pm for example!

Gaming
We look at questions to ask when buying a games console, such as if the console or games have chat facilities, is your child able to make purchases using their games console, or does your child’s gamertag reveal their identity?

Social Media
There are many features that you can put in place to ensure social media is safe for your child, like ensuring accounts are private not public, filtering out inappropriate comments and setting up two-factor authentication.

There are also a number of websites that give detailed advice on staying safe online, such as:

www.internetmatters.org/parental-controls
www.ncsc.gov.uk
www.net-aware.org.uk
www.getsafeonline.org

We are on social media! We post regular cyber safety updates on social media and you can find us @DurhamCyber on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. You can also contact the Durham Constabulary Cyber Protect Team at cyber.protect@durham.pnn.police.uk. Please be aware that our inbox is not staffed 24/7. Ring 999 in an emergency or 101 to report an incident

If you can keep your child safely at home or are a key-worker who can arrange other childcare we urge you to do so to limit the spread of Coranavirus.

From Monday 23rd March there will be daily Ruth Miskin Read Write Inc lessons available on Facebook and YouTube for children to watch at home. These will be available everyday for the next 2 weeks at the times below:

Set 1 Speed Sounds at 9.30am and again at 12.30pm

Set 2 Speed Sounds at 10.00am and again at 1.00pm

Set 3 Speed Sounds at 10.30am and again at 1.30pm

The films will be streamed live by Read Write Inc trainers and won’t be available at other times.

Also at 2pm each day there will be a film of a poem, these poems will be available on YouTube to enjoy again and again.

There will also be films for parents/carers to watch too, in order to continue to help your child read at home.
These films will be available on Facebook or the Read Write Inc YouTube channel. A new parent/carer film will be added to Facebook each day.

Parents/carers can sign up to either Ruth Muskin’s Read Write Inc  Facebook page or their  YouTube channel.

Stay safe everyone and enjoy your reading journey at home.

The latest Government advice is “If children can stay safely at home, they should, to limit the chance of the virus spreading.
That is why the government has asked parents to keep their children at home, wherever possible.
The fewer children making the journey to school, and the fewer children in educational settings, the lower the risk that the virus can spread and infect vulnerable individuals in wider society”

We are open for our pupils but as you can imagine we have our own staffing issues. We will remain open as long as it is safe in school for both staff and pupils in terms of staffing ratios. This could change on a day to day basis so we will inform you on any changes daily on both the website and Facebook page.

Please see the link below for the latest Government advice.

“https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/coronavirus-covid-19-maintaining-educational-provision/guidance-for-schools-colleges-and-local-authorities-on-maintaining-educational-provision”>Government Advice

Special schools have received updated guidance from the Director of Education relating to keeping our most vulnerable learners at home.

The guidance is:
Children and young people with significant health issues should be risk assessed on an individual basis, according to their medical needs.
Where the risk assessment identifies that the child is vulnerable to the virus, contact should be made with parents / carers to keep them at home.
Where parents / carers keep their children at home, based on their own decision due to health reasons, special schools should accept this decision until we have clearer government guidance.
Carry out a dynamic risk assessment daily to ensure you can open safely whilst protecting children and supporting staff.

Obviously there are some young people who have significant health and medical needs. School staff will consider this tomorrow and contact parents who have children in this category to suggest that they stay at home after the weekend, or sooner if parents prefer.

Croft will remain open to pupils as long as we are able to provide enough appropriate staffing. We will keep you up to date with any further information we receive.

Parents may choose to keep their children at home and this decision will be accepted until we receive any further guidance.

Good Morning Everyone
As you are aware we are going through an unprecedented time within schools. I am just writing to update you with information. We have been advised to cancel all out of school visits and activities as well as cancelling all PTA events. This includes the Mother’s Day afternoon Teas, the Film night we had planned for the 1st of April and the Easter Fayre on the 3rd of April. We have also had to postpone the trip to Edinburgh zoo. We have also been asked to reduce as much as possible all visitors coming into school therefore EHCP reviews, and other visits from professionals will be rearranged.
We will update the Facebook and website page as soon as any information is passed to us.
In the meantime if you have any questions or queries please don’t hesitate to contact the school.