Wincheap Foundation
Primary School
Developing skills for life and celebrating individuality
Home Learning Update
Dear Parents and Carers,
I am writing to you to update you on the ongoing situation regarding the provision of work for your children in these challenging circumstances. I accept that this is a difficult time for you – in an ideal world, your children would be back in school on Monday, learning with their peers in the classroom. We are all missing the children very much and want the very best for each and every one.
I am sure that many of you will be trying to balance home-schooling and entertaining your children alongside the expectation that you will also be working from home, and whilst I am sure you are doing a wonderful job, that is not easy for anyone. We understand that the children will not be learning in the same way that they would in school, but appreciate everything you are doing to continue to keep your children going until school is back up and running.
With the situation as it is, we must accept that children will be behind in their learning once they return to school. However, we must also recognise that this is a nationwide situation, so all children will be in the same boat. Once we are back at school normally, please rest assured that we will do everything we possibly can to get your children back on track with their learning. In the meantime, if you are able to do a little bit each day with your child, supporting their reading, writing and a bit of maths work, this will help enormously.
Once we are officially ‘back to school’ albeit mostly working from home when term starts on Monday 20th April, I will be asking teachers to look again at the work that they have suggested and published on the website. Each class or year group will provide you with a suggested daily expectation for how much time they would like your child to spend on various activities. Within this, there may be links to websites that your child can use and suggestions for what we feel they could do to support their progress in reading, writing and maths for their age group. These will be accessed as soon as possible in the usual place on the website – Children tab and then Class Newsletters. Please remember that this will be a guide only – we are not expecting that every child will complete everything suggested to them by their teacher. Please use your own context and situation to make the judgement as to how much you feel your child can do. After all, this is a very different situation for the children and their wellbeing must be at the heart of all that we do. Spending time with you, playing board games and observing nature etc is equally as valuable, if not more so.
I will also be asking subject leaders to create a bank of websites for their subjects at each stage of learning, which we will publish on the website – under the Children tab, Class Newsletters and then Whole School Learning Links. These links will be available on the website in due course.
Should you wish to communicate with your child’s teacher about aspects of the work, please do so by sending an email, with your child’s name and class to:
homelearning@wincheap.kent.sch.uk
This email address is monitored regularly and teachers will respond when they can, during working hours only. Please do bear in mind that many of our teachers are in the same position as you, attempting to home school their own families, whilst maintaining their own work. However, they will respond as soon as they are able to, assuming that they themselves are not unwell.
If you have any further queries, please do not hesitate to contact me by email – headteacher@wincheap.kent.sch.uk
Thank you for your continued support of us all – your positivity and kind words have kept us all going in these unprecedented times.
Yours sincerely, Nicola Dawson
Headteacher