When I realised that it was time for me to do a blog again I was amazed because I cannot believe that it is officially a week since the end of the Easter holidays - it made me realise that even in lockdown time can fly. I hope that you are all keeping well and that time is passing quite quickly for you as well. I am sure that you are all like me and find there are times when everything is fine and there are other times when you just want to go back to your former life. When I feel like that I just tell myself that there is no point in going through everything that we have for it all to be undone by returning to our former ‘normality’ too quickly.

I hope you are not finding the home schooling too challenging. I know it can be difficult for you to ensure that your children are completing their daily learning whilst trying to do your own job from home. We are aware of the difficulties and so is everyone in education - modifications will be  made to the curriculum when the children return so please do not panic that your children may fall behind. Remember the important thing at the moment is to keep everyone happy and healthy during a difficult time in our lives.

A good way to do this to ensure that children are happy and settled is to give them a daily routine. Limit their time online and also to the amount of news they see as this can cause them to have unnecessary anxiety. If you think your children are really struggling we have been told to advise you to use ‘Mind Ed’ for guidance on how to support your child. Advice has also been given out that you should try and limit the amount of sweet treats that you give your children as it does not do them any good but I must admit I find this a difficult one to stick to myself!

Remember we would love you to share anything you do at home to keep spirits up whilst everyone is at home - an example of a really creative piece of work or a picture of something interesting you may have seen on a family walk.

That is all for now. I hope we can all be together soon as all the staff are missing the sound of children’s laughter whilst we are in school. Please stay safe and I will be in contact again soon.

I hope you are all well and have survived your second week of lockdown –I never thought that I would be in a position where a visit to the supermarket is both terrifying and exciting.  I am unfortunately not one of those people who had previously signed up for online shopping and it has so far proved impossible to get signed up now so I will have to continue with the weekly visit to the supermarket – at least you do find items on the shelves now.

I hope that the home learning is going well - remember that if you have any problems that the school staff are contactable by email. As it is officially the Easter holidays we are not setting the daily learning that we have been doing for the next two weeks although we are going to ask the children to write or draw pictures for NHS staff (please see Class Pages for more information) to help give them a morale boost at this difficult time. I do not think that we can thank enough all the NHS staff and carers who are in the front line helping to fight this awful virus and I will do anything I can to support them.

That is all for now. Remember to keep yourself safe by going out as little as possible and to keep washing your hands. I will speak to you all again in a couple of weeks.