Dear Parents and carers

Thank you to all of you for the amazing work you are doing with your children. It is lovely to see all of the creative ideas you are doing with your children. Many of these are posted in our gallery, which is now a great source of ideas for both parents and teachers alike.

https://www.st-marys-jun.hants.sch.uk/gallery/?pid=7&gcatid=51

We fully understand that home learning can be a struggle at times and would continue to urge you to contact us and talk through matters with your child’s teacher or another member of staff. There are many resources in our well-being section, which can be included in your daily ‘lessons’ and the ideas can be useful for both children and adults. Also in this section there are signposts to other professionals, who at this time have set up easily accessible helplines

https://www.st-marys-jun.hants.sch.uk/page/?title=Emotional+Well%2Dbeing&pid=326

If you have not already seen it, please go to our news pages and listen to the recording that members of the senior choir have put together with Mrs Malone. Well done to everyone who took part, you should be really proud of the finished product. It is great to see, that despite the limitations we can still keep the arts going at St Mary’s, albeit in a somewhat limited from compared to what we are used to.

https://www.st-marys-jun.hants.sch.uk/news/?pid=195&nid=2&storyid=536

Apologies in advance for the number of emails that will be coming to you over the next few days. They will include:

• Our virtual Sports Day and fundraiser
• Details of end of year reports

Since the announcement was made by the prime Minister that other year groups would not be able to return to school we have been looking into a number of possible ways enabling children to have a short time with their teacher in order to give children closure. As you can imagine the challenges of even trying to do this are enormous, but we will be letting parents know as soon as, hopefully, we can find a way to do this whilst making sure that everyone remains safe.

Teaching your child to tell the time

A number of you have made a focus on using this period to support your child in learning to tell the time. A number of year groups have included this as part of their home learning, but we have now put together a separate resource that can be used for any year group. Please follow the link below to find this new pack:

https://www.st-marys-jun.hants.sch.uk/page/?title=Maths+information&pid=70

RSHE curriculum

As we have previously mentioned the new relationships, sex, health and relationships curriculum (RSHE) becomes statutory in September. Whilst this remains the case, the government recognise that schools have not been able to complete the full consultation with parents. We are one of many schools who have always taught the non-statutory PSHE curriculum and this will remain the case at the present time. We are in the middle of confirming out new curriculum and policy. These will be shared with you as soon as things get back to some semblance of normal. The vast majority of the curriculum will be taught through Heartsmart, which has also been updated to reflect the new requirements. In the mean time we will be teaching the areas around mental health and online safety, which we have always taught, but have a higher profile in the curriculum.

Thank you to all of you who responded to our survey around the non-statutory sex – education that we currently provide for our Year 6 children.  The outcome was a resounding ‘Yes’ (257 Yes, with only 2 No) that you would wish for this to continue. This means that next year, the Year 6 children will continue to receive these lessons. As they are not part of the statutory curriculum we will share the resources before the sessions and parents will have the option to withdraw their child from those lessons if they wish to do so. All of the other areas that we currently cover in Years 3-5, including puberty, are now part of the statutory Health Education and therefore parents will not have the right to withdraw from these.

More information including some of the new Heartsmart resources will be shared with you from September.

Reminders

PE Kit

We still have a number of PE kits in school.  If the kit was named you will have already been contacted and the kit is by the entrance awaiting collection. If you have not been contacted and believe your child’s PE kit is in school, please contact the office.

Library books

Thank you to all of you who have already returned your child’s library books. We do still have a large number outstanding and would ask that you have a really good look at home, both on the shelves and under beds! Books can be dropped into the box in the ‘airlock’ at main entrance any time you are passing.

On behalf of all the staff, I would like to thank you for all of your positive and supportive comments. It remains a really challenging time for everyone and all of us, like yourselves, are looking forward to a time when things can get back to some semblance of normality.

Best wishes

Caroline Welch

Headteacher