This year World Book Day is on Thursday 4 March. Please see the information below for more details:

• World Book Day 2021

***ONLY FOR CHILDREN WHO HAVE ATTENDED SCHOOL DURING W/B 8 FEBRUARY 2021***

Reporting symptoms after school closes for half-term break

If your child develops symptoms of coronavirus at any point over the half-term break you must book a test.

If your child develops symptoms up to and including Sunday 14 February which result in a positive test you must inform the school at byersgreen@durhamlearning.net.

Please include the name of your child, their class and the date that their symptoms started, as well as your own contact details.

If your child develops coronavirus symptoms from Monday 15 February onwards, they must be tested and, if positive, follow the advice of Test and Trace. You do not need to inform the school of any symptoms which occur on or after this date.

Dear Parents/Carers,

Thank you so much for returning and emailing work to us. It is fantastic to see the quality of the work being completed at home. It is really inspiring to see the children engaging in all of their tasks. If you have returned work to school, your child should have received a feedback form from their teacher. If you have not yet returned anything, please return completed work by Friday 12^th February.

On Friday 12^th February, packs will be available at the usual collection times. This work will be for the week beginning 22^nd February. Please have a break at half term and enjoy some down time from home-schooling.

Please note that class emails will not be checked over the half term break. Staff will check on Friday 12^th February for the last time until 8:30am on Monday 22^nd February. If you need to contact school for any reason please use the email byersgreen@durhamlearning.net.

If you are having trouble with data or devices, please contact the school office to discuss any issues. We will try our best to help.

Sending you all our best wishes,

Enjoy half term and stay safe,

Miss Dodds

On Tuesday 9 February 2021, we will celebrate Safer Internet Day with actions taking place right across the globe. With a theme once again of “Together for a better internet”, the day calls upon all stakeholders to join together to make the internet a safer and better place for all, and especially for children and young people.

Please see below for age-appropriate activities for KS1 & KS2 children:

Safer Internet Day Key Stage 1

Safer Internet Day Key Stage 2

 

Children’s Mental Health Week is taking place on 1-7 February 2021. This year’s theme is Express Yourself.

Please see the poster below for more information about how we would like you to get involved in this event.

Express Yourself poster

You can also find out more by visiting the website the Children’s Mental Health Week website:

https://www.childrensmentalhealthweek.org.uk/

Dear Parents/Carers,

Thank you for sharing the things your children have been doing at home. It is lovely to keep in touch and please keep sharing things with us.

Just to remind you that all of the resources you need for the week are being shared to the Remote Learning area of our website. On here you will find instructions, videos, PowerPoints and links to websites which help to explain the worksheets you have picked up in the resource packs. The website is organised so that everything you need for each day is uploaded to the date the work is due to be completed.

Printed packs will be available on a Friday. Text messages will be sent to give each class a time slot for collection. Please contact the school office or class emails if you wish to make alternative arrangements for collection.

Please could all completed work be sent into school by Friday 29^th January. We have made files in school for the children’s work and staff will be giving feedback to the children in the week commencing 1^st February. If your child has completed a lot of work in their exercise book, please drop that off and it will be re-issued on Friday 5^th February.

If you need to talk to any of the teaching staff, don’t hesitate to get in touch. Staff will be happy to discuss any issues you may be facing and also will be more than happy to discuss learning with your child on the telephone. We will be contacting you for regular updates, to see how things are going, but please feel welcome to contact us whenever you need us.

We hope you are all safe and well.

Kind regards,

Miss Dodds

Dear Parents/Carers,

We are sending you all our best wishes through these very difficult times.

Thank you to all of you who picked up the packs of learning materials from school. The packs are print-outs of the resources which we are uploading to our Remote Learning area on the website. We hope you have found them useful. Due to weather warnings and dangerous road conditions, school was closed on Thursday 14^th and Friday 15^th January so the next pack of resources will be available on Monday 18^th January. We will send a text when they are ready for collection. Please get in touch if you have any queries, either by class email or the school office.

On a weekly basis, we would like you to send us a photograph of a completed piece of work from Maths, English and topic work. This can be sent to the class teacher’s email. The work you share could be something your child is happy with or proud of, or something your child wishes to gain feedback on. We ask to see a minimum of three pieces of work per week but you are more than welcome to send more. Teachers will respond as soon as they can during the hours they are on site.

We would also like to see all of the completed paper resources. We will arrange drop off times for completed work which coincide with times when you are picking up learning packs. We will then organise the work into folders and books in school and send your child some feedback on their work, either by email, telephone or a written note in their next learning pack. The provisional date of the first drop off for completed work is Friday 29^th January. Bring along everything your child has done up until that point. We will then issue another date later in the term for the next drop off of resources.

If anyone is having any issues with Internet access, any issues with data or Wifi please get in touch with the school office. Pupils may be able to access remote learning from Xbox and Playstation devices using the instructions below:

Xbox

1. Plug a keyboard into the Xbox USB slot.
2. Go to my games and apps.
3. Find and select Microsoft Edge.
4. Navigate to your online learning platform.

Playstation

1. Identify the PlayStation internet browser icon (WWW with dots around it).
2. Press the PlayStation logo on the controller.
3. Go to the library and find options for games and applications.
4. Go to the applications and you will find the internet browser.
5. Navigate to your online learning platform and log in as usual.

Please get in touch if you are having any issues with your devices or if your child does not have access to a device.

Please do not hesitate to get in touch if you have any queries. The staff will be making regular contact with you either by phone or email to check in with how things are going.

Stay safe and keep in touch,

Kind regards,

Miss Dodds

Dear Parents/Carers,

Following Monday night’s announcement, we have had to change the term we had planned. For this period of lockdown, the Government have set out the expectations that children will still access the full breadth of the curriculum. They have also set a minimum requirement of three hours of learning per day. The staff are working in school to care for the children of Key Workers and those who are vulnerable, as well as supporting children learning remotely.

We have spent the week considering how to adapt the curriculum we had planned in order to teach the children from the safety of their homes. We are aware that this is a crisis and people will have a lot to deal with. We have considered some of you will be working from home and will have more than one child to support. We can reassure you, we are here for you and want to support our children in the best way we can.

The lessons we set for the children at home, will be the same as the lessons delivered in school to the children of Key Workers and those who are vulnerable. We felt this was a vital part of this process so that all of the children receive the same opportunities. We have developed a proposed timetable which mirrors our school day. Some of you will like the routine that this brings, where some of you may feel overwhelmed by it. It can be used flexibly to fit in with your circumstances.

The leadership team have thought carefully about how to provide high quality lessons that are realistic and accessible. Please be patient with us as we manage this situation as it is a completely different way of working for everyone. Things may change slightly from week to week as we streamline the way we do things. The teaching staff have worked extremely hard to source teaching clips and videos with matching activities that correspond to each lesson on the timetable. We have uploaded all of the resources to the Remote Learning areas of our website. Many of the resources will require printing, so staff will prepare a weekly booklet of resources. If you wish to pick up a pack of resources from school (we will print them for you), we have developed a covid-secure system to support this.

Collection of packs from school:

We have allocated time slots and request that, where possible, you come alone to collect the resources. Please phone Miss Dodds to discuss any queries you may have.

Please wear a face covering unless you are exempt.

Remember to observe 2m social distancing.

Sanitise your hands on entry to the front porch area.

A member of staff, wearing PPE, will acknowledge your arrival and deliver your pack to the entrance of school. Please remain in the porch area – we are trying to minimise the number of people entering the school building.

Collection will usually be on a Friday at the following times. However, due to the closure on Friday 8 January the packs for week beginning 11.01.21 will be available on Monday between the same times.

Class 1 & 2	9:30 – 11:30 am
Class 3 & 4	12:00 – 15:00 pm

Please do not hesitate to get in touch via email if you have any questions. If you haven’t already seen them, the email addresses for our class teachers are as follows.

• Miss Morgan – class1@byersgreen.durham.sch.uk
• Miss Forth – class2@byersgreen.durham.sch.uk
• Mrs Bradwell – class3@byersgreen.durham.sch.uk
• Mrs Mowbray – class4@byersgreen.durham.sch.uk

Miss Dodds (who is overseeing all of the remote learning) and Mr. Kirtley will also have access to the mailboxes so they may respond to your queries on occasion. Class teachers will be contacting you regularly for feedback on your child’s learning. They will respond to emails during the hours in which they are on site. Please remember your child’s teacher will still be involved in teaching those pupils attending school so they may not be able to respond immediately. If you have any urgent queries, please contact the school office and leave a message.

We would like to thank you for your messages of support. We hope we can all pull together as a school community to look after each other and support each other. Please stay safe and take care and remember we are here for you.

Kind regards

Miss Dodds

Dear Parents/Carers

Thank you for your patience and understanding as we have dealt with the events of what has already been a very challenging week … and it is still only Tuesday!

From next week we intend to provide learning packs as well as online resources for remote learning and more information will follow about this towards the end of the week.

Please see below for details about remote learning for the rest of this week.

Take care and stay safe.

Mr Kirtley

Class 1

Remote learning for the rest of this week will be available daily from tomorrow morning via Tapestry for Class 1. You should have received your child’s login details last term. If you have any difficulty accessing Tapestry please email Miss Morgan – class1@byersgreen.durham.sch.uk.

Classes 2, 3 & 4

Remote learning for English and maths for the rest of this week will be available daily from tomorrow morning via Classroom Secrets Kids for Classes 2, 3 & 4 and Times Tables Rock Stars for Classes 3 & 4. You should have received your child’s login details last term. If you have any difficulty accessing either of these websites please email your child’s class teacher as follows:

• Miss Forth – class2@byersgreen.durham.sch.uk
• Mrs Bradwell – class3@byersgreen.durham.sch.uk
• Mrs Mowbray – class4@byersgreen.durham.sch.uk

In addition the following opportunities are also available:

• Durham Music Service are providing 15 mins of safe music-making streamed live at 9:15am each day. The video clip will be available for the rest of the day at https://www.durhammusic.org.uk/15minsofmusic
• The BBC have added ten new Super Mood Movers videos to their website, created in partnership with Children in Need and the Premier League, to enhance children’s wellbeing with irresistibly catchy songs and easy-to-follow dance routines. Find them at https://www.bbc.co.uk/teach/supermovers/pshe-super-mood-movers/zm2gydm
• Encourage your child to read a book of their choice and discuss it with them.

Following the Prime Minister’s televised address this evening, our school will be closed from tomorrow (Tuesday 5 January 2021) other than for a limited number of children – children who are vulnerable and children whose parents are considered to be critical workers and cannot be safely cared for at home.

We will be in touch with the parents of those children who are considered to be vulnerable by text message (Unfortunately our text messaging system, Teachers2Parents, has crashed and we have had problems sending text messages this evening – we will try again tomorrow morning).

If after consulting the list below, you believe you are a critical worker and you would like your child to attend school from tomorrow, please email byersgreen@durhamlearning.net to inform us of your requirement. We will be unable to accept children of critical workers without this confirmation by email.

Critical workers

Parents whose work is critical to the coronavirus (COVID-19) and EU transition response include those who work in health and social care and in other key sectors outlined in the following sections.

Health and social care

This includes, but is not limited to, doctors, nurses, midwives, paramedics, social workers, care workers, and other frontline health and social care staff including volunteers; the support and specialist staff required to maintain the UK’s health and social care sector; those working as part of the health and social care supply chain, including producers and distributors of medicines and medical and personal protective equipment.

Education and childcare

This includes:

• childcare
• support and teaching staff
• social workers
• specialist education professionals who must remain active during the coronavirus (COVID-19) response to deliver this approach

Key public services

This includes:

• those essential to the running of the justice system
• religious staff
• charities and workers delivering key frontline services
• those responsible for the management of the deceased
• journalists and broadcasters who are providing public service broadcasting

Local and national government

This only includes those administrative occupations essential to the effective delivery of:

• the coronavirus (COVID-19) response, and the delivery of and response to EU transition
• essential public services, such as the payment of benefits and the certification or checking of goods for import and export (including animal products, animals, plants and food), including in government agencies and arms length bodies

Food and other necessary goods

This includes those involved in food:

• production
• processing
• distribution
• sale and delivery
• as well as those essential to the provision of other key goods (for example hygienic and veterinary medicines)

Public safety and national security

This includes:

• police and support staff
• Ministry of Defence civilians
• contractor and armed forces personnel (those critical to the delivery of key defence and national security outputs and essential to the response to the coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak and EU transition)
• fire and rescue service employees (including support staff)
• National Crime Agency staff
• those maintaining border security, prison and probation staff and other national security roles, including those overseas

Transport and border

This includes those who will keep the air, water, road and rail passenger and freight transport modes operating during the coronavirus (COVID-19) response and EU transition, including those working on transport systems through which supply chains pass and those constructing or supporting the operation of critical transport and border infrastructure through which supply chains pass.

Utilities, communication and financial services

This includes:

• staff needed for essential financial services provision (including but not limited to workers in banks, building societies and financial market infrastructure)
• the oil, gas, electricity and water sectors (including sewerage)
• information technology and data infrastructure sector and primary industry supplies to continue during the coronavirus (COVID-19) response
• key staff working in the civil nuclear, chemicals, telecommunications (including but not limited to network operations, field engineering, call centre staff, IT and data infrastructure, 999 and 111 critical services)
• postal services and delivery
• payments providers
• waste disposal sectors