I hope you have enjoyed watching the latest staff performance which has been uploaded onto our website. It is a much longer offering than we gave you last time but we do feel it is good for the children to see us in a positive way that will hopefully make them smile.

The majority of my week has been spent in preparations for the possibility that we could be opening the school to more children on June 1^st. I know that there has been a lot of discussion about this and there are many different theories whether it is the right thing or not which can be very confusing for parents. I hope it will reassure you to know that we have spent a lot of time making the school ‘COVID 19’ safe and there is not anything more that we could have done to prepare for your children’s return.

Next week is half term and so there will be no home learning for the children. I am sure that the children (and you) will be glad of the break. At least some of the restrictions have been lifted so we can travel further afield for our daily exercise – it does make a difference being able to look at different scenery.

Whatever you do I hope you all have a great time. I look forward to welcoming more of you back after half term. How many that is will depend on whether the government endorses the opening of the school to more children or not – I am sure that you will find out at the same time as us but we will contact you ourselves to ensure that you are clear about which children will be allowed to come in on June 1^st.

I would like to start by apologising for the late publication of my blog last week. As I communicated by ‘film’ last week there were a few technical hitches but we did manage to resolve them so I could go live. You will have seen from my video that my hair is in definite need of attention – I have actually built up the courage to allow my daughter to trim my fringe later today and I may do another video presentation next week so you can see the results! The big news this week of course is the possibility that schools may open to children other than those of key workers from June 1st. I have been inundated with information from county and the DfE since the government announcement on Sunday and I have been working through it all week in preparation for us possibly opening the school to more children from June 1st. We have sent out information gathering forms to parents who may be affected but I have not sent out a general notification to all parents yet and I will not do this until I know what offer the school will be able to make from June 1st.  Let me be very clear, all of us at Little Heath want to get more pupils back into school as soon as it is safe to do so. Our staff are devoted to the care and education of the young people in this school and they do not want to see classrooms empty for a day longer than they need to be. However, in making our decision we have to ensure that pupil and staff safety remains our primary concern and that it may not be possible to welcome back all pupils on June 1st in the way the prime minister described. Once we have carried out all the necessary risk assessments and health and safety checks I will contact all parents about how we are going to move forward. In the short term though nothing has changed and the children’s education is still being provided through our online learning packages which can be accessed on our website. I hope that the children are becoming more used to accessing their education from home - remember if they have a regular routine to follow it makes the home learning process a lot easier. I hope you enjoy the weekend. The government have relaxed some of the restrictions of Lockdown so we can enjoy a few more pursuits and see a few more people - all at the correct social distance of course. The weather is going to get warmer again which also makes people feel better as well.

First of all I would like to thank everyone who sent me kind messages about how much they liked our 'catch up’ message that we sent out to everyone. We thought it would be a good idea for the children to see our faces again so that they know we are still around. We are going to try and do more in the future so that the children can keep seeing us and do not feel that we are so far away. We are also missing the children so any pictures or work that they are completing is much appreciated.

I hope the home learning is going well. As I said last week all the children can do is their best and if they are really struggling with anything, either contact the class teacher by email or move onto something else. We are going to have to modify the curriculum whenever the children return and we can always catch up with any ‘gaps’ then. The important thing is that the children experience ‘learning’ every day so that the transition back to full time schooling will not be so much of a shock when we do return - whenever that will be.

As yet I have received no information about schools re-opening. Please do not pay too much attention to what is written in the papers about schools re-opening. For some reason journalists appear to want schools to re-open but no education body is going to let that happen until the safety of both children and staff can be guaranteed as far as possible during these challenging times.

That is all for now. Keep safe and well and let us all hope for the return of the warm weather.