Monday 14th September
WELCOME NEWSLETTER
Dear Mums, Dads and Carers
What a wonderful first week we had. Your children have been absolutely delightful and it has been a happy week in school. The children have adjusted well to our new procedures and are enjoying being with their teachers and friends.
Welcome to new staff!
We are very happy to welcome our new Facilities Manager, Mr Ellmer.
September 2020 Recovery Curriculum
We aim to increase the amount of ‘work’ around wellbeing throughout the school day. Our curriculum aims and objectives will remain the same as they were planned when we introduced our new approach in the 2019/2020 academic year, with the main focus being our Experience based curriculum. This curriculum will be slightly modified, so teachers are able to assess pupils’ wellbeing and academic progress to determine the correct support that is needed to support our children returning to school life. Through a range of approaches and teaching styles, our aim is to ensure that our children are able to settle safely and happily. Depending on government guidelines, we are hoping our plans will be in place for a short term but will have long term gains. Nevertheless, if this is not the case we feel this plan can easily be adapted to support the school community for the entire academic year.
We intend to prioritise identifying gaps and re-establish good progress in the core subjects: reading, spag (spelling, punctuation and grammar), writing and mathematics. We will identify opportunities across the curriculum so our children read widely and develop their knowledge and vocabulary.
This will be done through observation and afl (assessment for learning) by the class teacher to identify gaps, no formative assessment will take place. All our teaching staff are trained in quality first teaching.
The Government have re-issued the National Curriculum objectives for maths and we will continue with our White Rose delivery as this has been written with these new objectives in place.
Music and computing (using computers) will not be taught during the first term. This is due to the nature of the equipment and where instruments/equipment are located. We have also been informed that singing is not advisable.
The PE curriculum will be led with general health and wellbeing.
Experience Curriculum
At JWJS we deliver the curriculum in a way that ensures the maximum positive impact on our children. Our lessons evoke emotions and strive to totally immerse the children in an experience that is memorable and enjoyable. Our curriculum teaches the children through a number of experiences over the year which develop the children’s natural inquisitiveness.
Our curriculum is planned and sequenced so that new knowledge and skills build on what has been taught before and towards its clearly defined end points.
We aim to equip pupils with the knowledge and cultural capital they need to succeed in life. Our understanding of ‘knowledge and cultural capital’ is derived from the following wording in the national curriculum: ‘It is the essential knowledge that pupils need to be educated citizens, introducing them to the best that has been thought and said and helping to engender an appreciation of human creativity and achievement.
We will continue to follow our experience curriculum to retain a broad and balanced curriculum so that the majority of pupils are taught a full range of subjects over the year, including sciences, humanities, the arts, physical education/sport, religious education and relationships and health education. These are our current experiences
Year 3 – ‘Meet the Flintstones’. This is a history and science lead experience when the children will learn about the Stone Age, Iron Age and Bronze Age.
Year 4 – ‘Survival of the Fittest’. This is a science lead experience when the children will learn about the digestive system, teeth and food chains
Year 5 – ‘Boldly go where no one has gone before’. This is a science lead experience when the children will learn about Earth and Space.
Year 6 – ‘It’s all Greek to Me’. This is a history lead experience when the children will learn about the Ancient Greeks.
Baseline Results
At present teachers are busy assessing each child for writing, reading, maths and spag. This information will be communicated to you during week commencing 28th September along with what next steps are in place to support your child in their learning.
Operational Procedures
In order to keep our children, staff and yourselves safe, we are operating a ‘Covid Secure’ school as much as we possibly can following Government and KCC guidelines. This is a ‘live document’ and will be adapted to either relax or tighten procedures depending on the guidance given by the Government.
End of the School Day
In order to ensure social distancing when picking up at the end of the day, your children can be picked up from your allocated area between 3.05pm and 3.15pm as of Tuesday 15th September.
Year 6 Children
Now that all the children are aware of which entrance they need to come into school, children in Year 6 (from Monday 21st September) will be able to walk to and from school on their own if you would like them to. Please can you email the school office to give your permission if you are in agreement with this (office@joydens-wood-junior.kent.sch.uk. If we do not receive this permission, we cannot let your children leave site unaccompanied.
Year 3 – 5 Children
All children in years 3 – 5 must be dropped off and picked up by one parent/carer in the morning and after school. Thank you to those parents who have advised us if it is not yourselves picking up and dropping off from school. This is really important information for the safeguarding of your children.
Class Dojos
Due to popular demand, we have decided that we are going to launch dojo as one of our main forms of communication between yourself and the class teacher. Please look out for your invite during the next week. This will go live for every class week commencing 21st September. Further information will be sent out later this week.
Communication
I would just like to clarify how we as a school will communicate information to you:
Website and Text
All information from the school is loaded onto our website. You will be sent a text to advise you of this with a link at the bottom of this text taking you straight to the information that has been uploaded to the website.
The same message will be written in a letter and will be emailed to you. This duplicate letter will also be loaded up on the website.
Text
Any daily messages will be sent to you via text. We will complete a practice text during the school day on Tuesday 15th September. If you do not receive a text from us by 2pm, please do let us know so that we look into the reason why and ensure this is rectified.
Contacting School
Additionally, we are always at the end of the phone during the week (Monday – Friday, 8.30am – 4.30pm) - please do talk to us or send us an email on office@joydens-wood-junior.kent.sch.uk. We are always here for any concerns that are raised. We would prefer you to speak to us directly to get the answers to your concerns.
Class Teacher Contact
Obviously, Dojo will be a great communication route between you and the class teacher when it is launched. However, until this date if you could email or call the school, we will ensure that the class teacher responds to you. Please do not try to speak to the class teacher or TA at the beginning or end of the day as they need to be in class to support learning of all the children.
Calendar
As we are still unsure of how the current situation may affect us in the future, we are not in a position to confirm any dates in the diary at this time.
Online Learning Packages
The school has a licence for both TT Rockstars and SPaG.com. Your child’s login details will be stuck in the back of their homework book on Friday 11th September.
Homework
Your child will have arrived home on Friday with their homework book. Homework should be completed by a Wednesday but the book should not be brought back into school. Photos of this work can be taken and it can be uploaded onto Class Dojo. (Instructions to follow later this week).
Personal Belongings
We have lots of belongings that were left in school following lock down. If these were named, they will be given to your children over the next week to bring home. Any other items will be placed in the front playground next week (w/c 14th September) at the end of the school day (Monday – Friday) if you need to collect them. This is obviously weather permitting.
Golden Assembly
We will continue to hold our Golden Assembly every Friday. This will be via live feed into all our classrooms and will feature Star of the Week for each class.
Value
In line with our values education, our value for this term is ‘Friendship’. If you would like to read more about this please click on the following link:
https://www.joydens-wood-junior.kent.sch.uk/key-information-1/our-vision-and-values
Thank you to everyone one for your continued support during our full school opening. This has been one of the most challenging times for all of us and the kindness shown from our parents has been amazing.
Kind regards
Mrs Jacqueline Watson
Headteacher
