Dear Parents and children,

I write to let you know about leadership arrangements, classes and staffing for next year.

Teaching.

Year group	Main lead
Nursery	Mrs Jarka Jancarova
Reception	Miss Emma Roberts
Year 1	Mrs Sarah Bibby
Year 2	Miss Rachael Griffiths	Mr James Carr
Year 3	Mrs Jo Garnock-Jones
Year 4	Mrs Elena Butcher
Year 5	Mrs Louise Beaumont	Mrs Nicole Dodd
Year 6	Mrs Rebecca Hamilton	Mrs Rebecca Riley

 

Leadership.

Mrs Beaumont (Deputy headteacher) will be leading in Key Stage 2, while Miss Griffiths (Deputy headteacher) will be leading in Early Years and Key Stage 1.  Both will be teaching for 0.5 of the week.

Pastoral lead:  Mrs Sally Lee will be leading the team on our pastoral support for children and families, with Hayley Moorcroft.  As well as teaching Personal, Social and Health Education throughout the school, there will be increased levels of support and counselling for our children and families, as we emerge from COVID 19 restrictions.

Special Needs:  Mrs Nicole Dodd has been appointed by Governors as our new Special Needs coordinator, which she will do for two days a week.  She will also be teaching for the rest of the week in Year 5.

Finally, as regards the headship, I will remain as headteacher at school until at least Christmas, and probably beyond until the school is able to appoint a Catholic headteacher.  I will be working for four days a week, as I do currently.  On the other day, Miss Griffiths will be the headteacher.

September.

A key question you will all be thinking is “what is going to happen in September?” We are currently planning to be back, and very much looking forward to it. Following the guidance we received last week, we have spent much time looking at what social distancing in all our classrooms, corridors and toilets would look like.  We have thought of bubbles of classes and managing this.  We also have to think about lunchtimes and how we arrange that.  In our planning, we will try and avoid staggered starts, so all pupils come into class at the same time as now, as we recognise that this will not be convenient for you.  It may not be possible for parents and the younger children to walk across KS2 playgrounds and then onto KS1, however.  I hope to start the walking bus and breakfast club in September.  Having listened to your feedback, this will be open to all KS1 and KS2 children.  We will not be having any clubs, certainly for the autumn term.

All I can say is that we will continue to do the very best we can for all our children and our community.  I will of course keep you updated through the next few weeks and months, so that when we re-open in September, you know exactly how we are prepared for the new term.

In the meantime, Year 6 have been invited back to school for the last three weeks, and school reports are being written and will be sent out soon.  We are running a summer play scheme for our nursery, Reception and Year 1 children in the summer (August 10^th and 17^th).  We are also inviting Year 2 in for a week in August, again as a way of preparing children for a return in September.

Finally, we also have to think about how we, as a school, have handled COVID 19 in terms of children’s learning.  We also have to think about how we would continue to educate children should we ever have to go into lock down again.  Therefore, I will be sending you a questionnaire next week so that you can tell us your views.  I hope you will have time to fill these in, over the next few weeks. I will collate all the information together, then send out the results to you.

May I wish you and your family a restful summer, wherever that might be.

 

Mr S Belbin and all the team at St Joseph’s.