Please see the updated information below from NHS County Durham:

Where and when you can you walk in to get your jab in County Durham updated CURRENT

Dear Parents/Carers,

On Tuesday 8 February we will be joining schools and youth organisations across the UK in celebrating Safer Internet Day 2022. Safer Internet Day is a global campaign to promote the safe and responsible use of technology, which calls on young people, parents, carers, teachers, social workers, law enforcement, companies, policymakers and more, to join together in helping to create a better internet.

Using the internet safely and positively is a key message that we promote in Byers Green Primary School, and celebrating Safer Internet Day is a great opportunity for us to re-emphasise the online safety messages we deliver throughout the year. Some of the activities we’ll be participating in on the day include:

• Staying safe online story ‘Digiduck’
• Role play activities linked to the story
• Information sorting (information that is safe to share online and information to be kept private)
• Designing posters/presentations explaining how to stay safe online

We would be delighted if you could join us in celebrating the day by continuing the conversation at home. To help you with this, you may be interested in downloading the free Safer Internet Day Resources for Parents and Carers which is available at: saferinternet.org.uk/sid-parents.

There are top tips, quizzes, and films which you can use at home with your child.
Some other resources which you may find helpful in supporting your child online are:

• Tips, advice and guides for parents and carers from the UK Safer Internet Centre
• Advice for parents and carers from Childnet 
• Reviews and information about games, apps, TV shows and websites from Common Sense Media 
• Help on using parental controls and privacy settings from Internet Matters
• Information and reporting of online grooming or sexual abuse from CEOP

Online safety is an important issue which as a school we’re committed to teaching our pupils about.

If you have any concerns or questions about keeping your child safe online, please do get in touch with us.

Kind regards

Mr Kirtley

Headteacher

Family Online Safety Plan

Dear Parent/Carer,

The week beginning Monday 7 February is Children’s Mental Health Week.

We’ll be doing some special activities during this week to help children keep mentally well, using resources provided to us by Coram Life Education SCARF and on Friday 11 February, to mark the end of this week, we’ll be holding a special Wear your scarf to school day.

SCARF is a big part of our health and wellbeing/PSHE curriculum where we learn about all the things we can do to keep ourselves physically and mentally healthy.

On Wear your SCARF to school Day children are invited to wear a special or favourite scarf all day in school. We’ll be doing some special activities to help us remember and celebrate SCARF’s important values of Safety, Caring, Achievement, Resilience and Friendship.

You can also try these activities to support children’s emotional health at home, provided by Coram Life Education SCARF, during the week.

Coram Life Education SCARF is a children’s health and wellbeing that works throughout the UK to provide high-quality PSHE education for primary-age children. You can find out more about Coram Life Education by visiting their website www.coramlifeeducation.org.uk and about their SCARF PSHE resources here.

Thank you for your support with this important part of your child’s education.

Kind regards

Miss Dodds

Deputy Headteacher

FAO: Y4, Y5 & Y6 parents and carers only

STUDENT VOICE SURVEY

Our school, as well as many others in County Durham, is participating in a survey for children and young people. This survey will inform the development of plans and services across County Durham and is designed to positively impact upon pupils as services can be directed to support where particular issues come to light.

The survey has been designed in conjunction with children and young people and includes questions of a range of topics including:

Educational wellbeing

• Homework
• Lessons
• Career advice (secondary only)

Social wellbeing

• Healthy relationships
• Mental health and wellbeing
• Behaviour and safety
• Online safety

Health and physical wellbeing

• Physical activity
• Healthy eating
• Smoking, alcohol, (drugs – secondary only)

Community wellbeing

• Hobbies and interests
• Access to community facilities

Each response will be anonymous and confidential, and therefore no pupil will be identified when the data is analysed.  The council’s Research and Intelligence team will receive the results and data for use in further analysis at council and school level. The council and partners will then use this information to plan and target services, especially where improvement is required. Further information is available in Frequently Asked Questions, which can be found below.

I hope you will agree with us that this is an exercise in which we wish to co-operate fully.  I will assume you DO APPROVE unless I hear otherwise, and I look forward to working with you to support the best school life, health and wellbeing for our pupils.

Yours sincerely

W. Kirtley

Headteacher

SVS FAQs for children and young people

Data Protection Act 2018

Durham County Council complies with all relevant statutory obligations.  Personal information processed by the Council will be handled in accordance with the Council’s privacy statement, which can be accessed here http://www.durham.gov.uk/dataprivacy.

If you have any concerns about how your data is handled, please contact either the Data Protection Officer at DPO@durham.gov.uk  or the Information Commissioner’s Office casework@ico.org.uk.

Please see the message below from Durham University:

We are back running sport and activity camps from Monday 21st to Friday 25th February at our state of the art Sports and Wellbeing Park. The camps are available to all 5-11 year olds and can be booked on a day to day basis. Costs are £15 per day (09.30am-4.30pm) with a small charge for wraparound care from 08.30am and until 5.30pm each day.

Click here to see a short video about what happens at our Holiday Camps.

To book a place for your child, please click here.

Please see the message below from Durham County Council:

FAO parents of Y5 & Y6 children

Please see the information below from Durham Music Service:

Durham Music Training Choir poster PDF January 2022

Please see the information below from the Department for Education:

Changes to the self-isolation period for those who test positive for COVID-19

From Monday 17 January, people who are self-isolating with COVID-19 will have the option to reduce their isolation period after 5 full days if they test negative with a lateral flow device (LFD) test on both day 5 and day 6 and they do not have a temperature. For example, if they test negative on the morning of day 5 and the morning of day 6, they can return to their education or childcare setting immediately on day 6.

The first test must be taken no earlier than day 5 of the self-isolation period, and the second must be taken the following day. All test results should be reported to NHS Test and Trace.

If the result of either of their tests is positive, they should continue to self-isolate until they get negative results from two LFD tests on consecutive days or until they have completed 10 full days of self-isolation, whichever is earliest.

Anyone who is unable to take LFD tests or anyone who continues to have a temperature will need to complete the full 10 day period of self-isolation.

Further information on self-isolation for those with COVID-19 is available.

Dear Parents/Carers

Happy New Year! I hope everyone had an enjoyable and relaxing Christmas break.

With the children returning to school on Wednesday 5 January 2022, I wanted to provide an update in light of the current circumstances in relation to coronavirus.

As you will no doubt be aware, daily case numbers are now significantly higher than they were at the end of last term and there is continued uncertainty as to how the situation will develop as we head into this new term. Therefore, we feel we need to put in place some additional measures to reduce the possibility of transmission in school and minimise the risk of infection for everyone. Our approach is to create infant (Class 1 and Class 2) and junior (Class 3 and Class 4) bubbles which could then be streamlined into individual class bubbles should the need for further restrictions arise. Please see the information that follows for an overview of these additional measures.

Drop off and pick up

Drop off

• The current arrangements for drop off will continue with children able to arrive at any time between 8:45am and 8:55am.
• Parents may accompany children in Classes 1 and 2 to the near side gate where the children will be met by a member of staff and guided towards their classroom.
• Children in Classes 3 and 4 will be directed across the car park and round the building to the far side gate in order to access their classrooms. We request that parents of children in Classes 3 and 4 drop their children at the pedestrian gate in order to reduce congestion on site.
• For health and safety reasons, please can you ensure that any older children travelling to school unaccompanied do not arrive on the premises before 8:45am.

Pick up

• The near side gate will be opened at 3:05pm.
• The children being collected will remain in their classrooms.
• Parents will be able to walk round to the playground at the rear of the building and collect their children directly from their classrooms at the designated time (3:05pm or 3:15pm).
• If more than one child is being collected, please collect the younger child/children first.
• If you have children in different classes with different pick up times, please pick up at the later time.

Playtimes and lunchtimes

These will be staggered to ensure that there is no mixing between the infant and junior children at these times.

Breakfast club

Breakfast club will start again on Wednesday 5 January 2021 at 8:00am. The children will be seated in infant and junior groups during this time.

Contacting school

In the interests of the safety of everyone concerned, we request that parents only contact school by telephone or email in the first instance. Parents/family members needing to come to the main entrance for a specific prearranged reason will be expected to remain in the porch area and wear a face covering unless exempt.

Take care and stay safe.

Mr W. Kirtley (Headteacher)

What to do if there is a case of coronavirus (COVID-19) in your household?

It is strongly advised to increase testing when there is a positive COVID-19 case in your household:

•     PCR testing for all adults and pupils if they are a close contact of a positive case in their household*.

•     Daily LFT testing at home for 7 days for any adult and also for all children aged 5 years and over who are exempt from isolation and continue to attend school. The testing of primary age pupils is at parental discretion. Testing should start from the day the household member has symptoms or if they don’t have symptoms from when they tested positive*.

*Note:  People who have tested positive with a PCR test within the last 90 days should not be encouraged to test unless they develop new symptoms

Children under 5 years are exempt from self-isolation and do not need to take part in daily LFD testing of close contacts.

Ordering or collecting LFD home testing kits

We would recommend you have a supply of LFD testing kits at home in the event you need to use them. You can order home testing kits to be delivered to your home here www.gov.uk/order-coronavirus-rapid-lateral-flow-tests

Or you can collect LFD testing kits at Community Collect sites across the County. To find your nearest collection point please enter your post code here maps.test-and-trace.nhs.uk

If you pick up tests from a pharmacy, you may be asked for a ‘collect code’ this helps the NHS match your details to the tests. To get a ‘collect code’ please visit  test-for-coronavirus.service.gov.uk/collect-lateral-flow-kits

Please register the result of your home test at www.gov.uk/report-covid19-result

COVID-19 and Pregnancy

The government has urged pregnant women to come forward for vaccination. Below is the link to a recent government briefing and a summary of key points.

https://www.gov.uk/government/news/unvaccinated-mothers-urge-pregnant-women-to-get-jabbed

• Vaccines continue to provide tens of thousands of pregnant women and their babies with vital protection from the virus.
• In the UK since April 2021, around 84,000 pregnant women have received one dose and over 80,000 have received two doses of the COVID-19 vaccine.
• The vaccines are safe for pregnant women and have no impact on fertility.
• Nearly 1 in 5 COVID-19 patients who are most critically ill are pregnant women who have not been vaccinated.
• Of those pregnant women in hospital with symptomatic COVID-19, 98% are unvaccinated, and no fully vaccinated pregnant women were admitted to intensive care with COVID-19 in England between February and the end of September 2021.
• Around 1 in 5 women who are hospitalised with the virus need to be delivered preterm to help them recover and 1 in 5 of their babies need care in the neonatal unit.

UKHSA_12073_COVID-19_pregnancy_poster