OAK BITES 3^rd June 2020

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Dear Fair Oak Family,

Happy Wednesday!

I hope that the week is going well. It is great to have some of our Year 6 children back in school and we are looking forward to seeing the second half next week. Thank you so much for your lovely feedback about how your child has settled back into school.

The work on the school field has begun and we are really looking forward to our all-weather artificial turf. This space will be incredibly helpful for break times and lunchtimes, especially when we lose the playground closest to the infant school.

Classes for next year

Each year the children are put into new classes. Although the children haven’t completed a whole year with their current class due to the COVID19 situation, we will be splitting the children for September 2020 – which is in line with our colleagues at the infant school, who will be splitting their year two children for transition to us.

Why? Classes are split by three main factors:

1. A mix of academic ability, so that children of all prior attainment levels can succeed
2. Relationships and learning and/or social behaviours – these change yearly. Sometimes children’s learning/social behaviours change considerably in a school year for a number of reasons
3. Friendships – as much as possible, we try to give your child the scope to choose a friend.

We split the classes each year because we have a holistic picture of what is happening in each class and indeed throughout the year group. As a parent you, rightly, will have your child’s best interest at heart which may be governed by friendship issues and/or perceived concerns with behaviour (learning and/or social). Whilst we clearly take this all on board, we have to look at every individual child, relating to the factors above, as well as the needs of the teachers – in that teachers may need to change year groups etc.

So why change then? Changes to classes are needed to redress the balance according to the three factors above. As parents, you may not know the full picture of the class or the year group, whereas we, as the educational professionals – who see the children daily in an educational context, do. That being said, you as parents may have communicated concerns about your child’s class placement throughout the year. Class splits, therefore, allow us to continue to redress the balance as best as possible.

I understand the logic over the class splits, but I’m really worried about how my child will cope with not knowing who his/her class teacher is, and who else will be in his/her class. Once classes have been split, your child’s new teacher will communicate with him/her via a new Purple Mash Blog. Whilst we are unable to share the names of children in each class group with your child due to data protection, s/he will be able to communicate with the new class group on Purple Mash.

So, will my child be able to decide who is in his/her class? The short answer is no, but your child will be able to select 5 friends. We will absolutely try our best to get at least 1 of their 5 friends into his/her new class.

How will my child be able to choose these friends?

Please speak to your child about the process – that they will be able to choose 5 friends from across the year group and that the school will do its best to get at least 1 of their choices in their class for next year. Once done, please complete the short survey monkey questionnaire (click here) by Midday on Monday 15^th June. If this isn’t completed, we will not have choices from your child. Teachers will be creating the classes during the inset day on Friday 19^th June. Once the choices have been made by the staff, they will not change.

As always, thank you for your support with this.

A few points for those in school

• Wyvern vending machine – children should not be using this at the beginning and end of the day
• Please do not bring in large school bags into school.
• Please speak to your child about adhering to social distancing when they are walking to and from school.
• Named water bottles need to be sent in - some children aren’t bringing water bottles.
• Sun cream – please send your child into school with sun cream (which they can apply). You may also want to send them in with a sun hat.
• Hand cream – Children are washing their hands at least 6 times a day, so you may want to send your child into school with some hand cream. Please also encourage your child to dry their hands thoroughly.
• Attached: Back to school travel guide

Year 6 children

For those children who are not in school with their bubble, we would be grateful if they could keep up with our YouTube learning videos at home. This means that when they are back in school for their week, they will be up to date and the learning can continue! Thank you, we know that many demands are being made of you all at this time and we really appreciate your support with this.

For the next few weeks, there will be no set to dos on Purple Mash due to the increased demand of the planned work. However, please feel free to upload your child’s learning and comment on the blog.

Have a good few days.

Mr De Silva