Good morning everyone,

Here’s hoping that you are all safe and well and have enjoyed an Easter break if work commitments allowed.

Just an update on home learning...

When the lockdown began 4 weeks ago, it was an enormous shock for all of us. Parents suddenly faced the prospect of losing jobs, finding childcare and the possibility of being ‘teacher’ all the while giving our children the impression that ‘everything is fine’. It took us, as a school, a couple of weeks to work out staffing, key worker pupils, free school meals and distance learning. We’re still trying incredibly hard to perfect these things (if that’s possible under the circumstances). I gave teachers the task of uploading new learning for you to try at home IF you had the resources/flexibility/confidence, thinking that hopefully some miracle would occur and we’d be back in school by now. This was a short term plan and in hindsight, wasn’t necessarily the most effective option. Hindsight is a wonderful thing though isn’t it.

There isn’t one of us that will be left untouched by this virus. Whether it’s with financial loss, health and well-being implications or, and I say this praying that none of our families have to face this, but the possibility of the loss of a friend or loved one. I can’t stress this enough; the health and well-being of the adults and children that belong to our schools is THE ONLY priority. 

The news and social media are consumed with statistics and conspiracy theories. The world as we know it isn’t a safe place at the moment but what we can do, as parents and professionals, is make sure that our small humans are coping. As sad as it is, we have to be realistic in thinking that another 3 weeks may not actually be the end of lockdown. Our children will miss out on huge chunks of learning. They’ll miss huge chunks of quality time playing with their friends and families. Everyone is in exactly the same boat. Let US worry about playing catch up academically when it’s safe for us all to return to some sort of normal school routine. For now, I’m asking teachers to adapt home learning to focus on revision of key learning from September to March. Reading can move on, so can phonics but anything else new needs to wait until we’re able to deliver it to our children properly (in terms of English and Maths). We’ll continue to upload topic learning in the form of questions to investigate IF you are able to do so.

To quote something that’s been widely spread on social media ‘no kids are ahead, no kids are behind’. All I’m asking is that you teach children how to cope. How to find the positive moments in every day. How to talk about the monsters under the bed that actually are OURS too in this situation. How to keep things in perspective most days. How to enjoy family time, whether there’s 2 of you or 22. How to keep that childhood innocence at the heart of everything despite the chaotic world around us.

It’s absolutely ok not to be ok some days. But please, remember that with home learning, little and often is great. If you can’t, then don’t. 

As always, if there’s anything you want to raise or anything I can help with then please just email. Thank you for bearing with us and continuing to support our fantastic staff team.

Be kind to yourselves and each other,

Miss Hollings 

j.hollings@lmjs.lancs.sch.uk