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A letter from the Children's Commisioner of Wales

Mon 25 Jan 2021 S Holloway

People who can make a difference to your life want to hear from you about how life has been like over the last few weeks.

The Children's Commissioner for Wales, the Youth Parliament and Children in Wales have been working with the Welsh Government, to make sure that they hear and listen to what you have to say. All of those people want to make sure they are doing their best for all children and young people in Wales. They want to make sure that they are giving you the information and support you need to feel as happy as possible during this time and afterwards.

The survey should take you around 15 minutes.

The survey closes on 29 January 2021.

Please share your views. The survey is on this link: www.childcomwales.org.uk/coronavirusandme

Update from Ms Jones

Wed 20 Jan 2021 L Jones

To parents/guardians of Greenhill pupils

I hope you and your families are all well. We are now nearly three weeks into term and I thought I would take this opportunity to update you regarding the current situation.

School remains closed for face-to-face learning for most pupils. This situation will be reviewed on January 29^th, but with the current Covid numbers, many people are expecting this to continue until at least half-term. I will, of course, keep you updated.

Communication is key at this time, and we have a number of ways we get in touch with you, and that allow you to contact us. Please make use of these if you have any questions at all.

The school is open every day Monday-Friday, so call us on 01443 875521. If you wish to speak to the class teacher, Mrs. Davies will be able to arrange this.
The school mobile is 07572 010246. If you wish to get in touch out-of hours, please text or leave a voicemail on this number.
MAKE SURE WE HAVE AN UP-TO-DATE CONTACT NUMBER FOR YOU.
Download OurSchoolsApp and put in CF82 8EU, and you will have access to a number of links. We also put all letters (such as this) on here – and text you to let you know when a new letter has been uploaded.
Our school website is www.greenhillprm.co.uk. Letters are also placed on here.
Mrs. Gould, our Family and Community Engagement Officer, makes phone calls to families for a general check-in, and to see if we can help further with online learning.
An excellent way of communicating directly with your child’s class teacher is via SeeSaw. If you are having difficulty with this, please get in touch and we will be happy to assist. SeeSaw is also a fantastic platform for online learning, and is a lovely way for the class teacher and children to share videos and comments. Please download both the SeeSaw Family app and the SeeSaw Classroom app if you haven’t already done so.

There has been a lot of talk in the media about ‘live-streaming’. We are aware that there are a number of practical issues relating to this, including some siblings needing to share a device, and some children who complete their work on evenings and weekends due to parents’ working patterns. Therefore, we have chosen to upload videos; currently these are relatively short videos explaining the work for the day, and are available on SeeSaw. We will also begin video conferencing in small groups so the children have a chance to chat with their class teacher. The Welsh Government strongly advises we use Hwb/Teams for this; your class teacher will help you set this up, if you wish.

The amount of school time our children have missed since last March is extremely concerning, and we are already working on plans to maximise their learning when they return. I realise home-schooling is very challenging, and I do not want you as parents/guardians to be stressed about this; however, neither do I want learners to fall behind their classmates. Every bit of work they complete at home is beneficial so please encourage them to do their Google Classroom/SeeSaw tasks, MyOn reading, Mathletics, etc. If the children can’t (or won’t!) do every task set, please encourage them to do at least one task every day. If technology is an issue, we will happily arrange for paper tasks to be sent out. I cannot emphasise enough that we are more than happy to help in any way we can – please get in touch.

Take care.

Lisa Jones

Headteacher

Please be aware we have a responsibility to ensure our learners’ well-being even if they are not attending school. If our calls and texts go unanswered for a period, we will refer to the Education Welfare Service, in order to ascertain whether everything is ok. We will send you a text letting you know when we do this.

Video Conferencing

Mon 18 Jan 2021 S Holloway

For parents and carers,

Good morning, bore da. Soon the teachers will be contacting you regarding beginning video conferencing with your children. The vast majority of parents and carers have already signed an online form giving permission for children to participate in this (if you haven't responded yet then Mrs Davies will be contacting you). I thought i would take this opportunity to remind you of the terms of the agreement so we can make sure that all calls go as smoothly as possible.

Please read carefully.

When participating in live lessons and video conferencing:

Learners agree to:

• be punctual for all lessons

• make sure they have all power adaptors and laptops ready before the lesson begins and are logged into the session

• show respect for everyone in the online classroom

• dress appropriately for all classes, thinking about respect for others

• ensure the location they log in from is appropriate, i.e. give consideration to background, camera angle, privacy, etc.

• seek to contribute to the class in a positive manner and not be disruptive at any time

• do not record or take images of any part of the live stream.

Parents agree to:

• encourage their child to come online and participate

• make themselves aware of the policy for distance learning (this is found on our website)

• know the date and time of the agreed meeting with the teachers online

• ensure the location the child logs in from is appropriate, i.e. give consideration to background, camera angle, privacy, etc.

• when the child is set up, move out of view from the screen so that only the child can see the screen and the incoming camera can only see your child.

• promptly report any concerns they have and contact the teacher directly through SeeSaw

• make sure the child is appropriately dressed to go online as you would for school (no need for school uniform)

• turn off the live streaming lesson at the end of the session.

The meetings will take place using Microsoft Teams and will be arranged through the Hwb platform. All children have been provided with their Hwb details previously. If you no longer have the details for your child/children please contact class teachers via SeeSaw and they will help you out.

Thank you all for your cooperation in this matter. Stay safe and well.

Stuart Holloway

Continued School Closure Letter

Fri 08 Jan 2021 L Jones

January 8^th 2021

To parents/guardians of Greenhill pupils

Happy new year to you all - although I’m sure we all had hoped for a better start to 2021!

It was announced earlier today that schools will continue to be closed for face-to-face learning for most pupils this half-term. While this is disappointing for us all, it is understandable considering the rates of Covid-19 infection at present.

As most children will now be learning remotely for six weeks, it is important we offer all the assistance we can to keep your child learning. A huge thanks to all of you who have already completed the Digital Access survey that was sent out today. Please could I encourage all of you to do so as soon as possible as we are sending in numbers to the Welsh Government on Monday.

If your child has no means of accessing learning online, please let the school know, and we will endeavour to make other arrangements next week.

The school continues to be open for the children of critical workers and vulnerable children.

As always, please contact us with any questions.

Take care.

Lisa Jones

Headteacher

Letter from Keri Cole 04/01/21

Mon 04 Jan 2021

Dear Parent,

Happy New Year to you all and I firstly would like to take this opportunity to thank you for your ongoing patience and co-operation regarding the situation in our schools.

You will be aware of ongoing discussions at a national level between the government, local authorities and teaching unions about re-opening our schools in the safest way possible in order to protect pupils and staff.

We all agree that the health and wellbeing of the whole school community is paramount and discussions have been taking place this morning between CCBC and Head Teachers across the county borough to agree the best way forward.

We know that the increasing number of new cases, particularly the new variant of coronavirus, is causing significant concern. You may also be aware that new advice on shielding was issued before Christmas which is impacting staffing levels in our schools.

Welsh Government has today confirmed that all schools across Wales will adopt a ‘blended learning’ approach for the next two weeks, until Monday 18th January. This means that most pupils will not physically attend school, but will be provided with learning.

However, schools will open for vulnerable learners and the children of eligible key/essential workers from Wednesday this week (6th January). Please apply via the following link

https://www.caerphilly.gov.uk/Services/Coronavirus/Emergency-school-provision-for-keyworkers

We are committed to re-introducing face to face teaching in a phased approach for all pupils after the 18th January, as soon as national and local risk assessments allow and we await further guidance in this respect.

I will continue to keep you updated about any new developments around this issue.

Regards

Keri Cole

Chief Education Officer

Greenhill Primary School

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