The Chronicle

Dear Parents

I was hoping that I would be sharing happier news in the first edition of the Lent Term’s Chronicle, commenting on how the children had returned to school rested after the Christmas break.  Sadly, as we all know too well, we have entered another period of national lockdown.  However, I hope you will agree that everyone has picked up the home learning baton very quickly, is doing their best and has settled into a workable and successful remote learning routine.  Striking the right balance, whilst ensuring the best possible progress is important.  Please do communicate with your child’s teacher if you are experiencing any difficulty with completing work and they will be able to best advise in each situation.  We are here to work with you and guide and support where necessary.

I sincerely appreciate everyone’s contribution, the teachers delivering lessons at home whilst having to care for their own families, the staff who are supervising the critical worker provision in school, parents who are doing their very best to support their children’s learning at home whilst juggling their own work commitments and the children who, despite wanting to return, are working very hard.  I’d also like to thank our Nursery, catering and some of our office and maintenance staff who are very much operating ‘business as usual’.

Thank you for completing the questionnaire that was sent earlier this week which will enable me to plan for the weeks ahead.  I will be able to confirm spaces in the provision for those who have requested it by Monday afternoon, if not before.  Until that time, all requests to attend the provision are being treated as ‘accepted’ (including Monday next week).

Bearing in mind the government’s latest statement, yesterday, to ‘stay at home if at all possible’, I sincerely appreciate that many critical worker families are only sending their children in on certain days and not using the provision five days a week, unless absolutely necessary.  Please know that you will be able to adjust your request for provision at any time and we will do our best to meet your request.

I am very grateful to Mr Cottrill for hosting our first celebration assembly of the term this morning.  I am sure that there will be many stories relating to home learning next week and I look forward to sharing these with you.  Please keep sending in your photographs of the work completed at home and some of the projects you have been working on as it is so wonderful to be able to share this with the rest of the school community.  We can see this as an opportunity to ‘learn outside the box’ even more than usual.  For example, thinking back, so many people really enhanced their IT skills over the past six months.

Congratulations to those children who were awarded Bronze Awards last term: Evie, Finley, Isabelle, Theo, Isla in Junior 3 and George and Sidney in Junior 5.  Well done and you will be receiving your certificates shortly.  All other awards and house points will be handed out from next Friday.

The PTA continue to plan and work extremely hard for the school from home arranging events that can be held online and I do encourage you to support them wherever possible.  Please look out for the ‘Online Bingo’ coming up soon.

Thank you for the many messages of thanks at the end of last term.  I sincerely hope that you were also all able to enjoy a lovely Christmas period with your families.

Finally, thank you for your support thus far; your kind and understanding comments while we try to do our very best for you is appreciated by everyone at Crackley Hall and Little Crackers.  We will be reviewing our provision from the outset and are always available to listen and support our families.

I wish you all a restful and happy weekend.

God Bless

Mr Duigan