Our Lady of the Wayside School – School Closure Update

Dear Parents,

Thank you for your patience and for bearing with us today; as you can imagine a lot of arrangements are having to be put into place following yesterday’s announcement of the immediate closure of schools.  We are still awaiting further national and local guidance but I am now in a position to update you with arrangements for this week.

Remote Learning Update

We are in the process of modifying our remote learning arrangements to ensure we cater for those vulnerable children and key worker children who are attending school, as well as those children who are learning remotely from home. We will be offering a blended approach. Through Microsoft Teams children will:

• have the opportunity to meet their class teacher daily for collective worship and a wellbeing check
• receive daily direct teaching sessions delivered by their  teacher
• be provided with learning activities created and chosen by their class teacher. These will be assessed by the teacher and children will receive feedback
• have the opportunity to undertake learning which will supplement and complement our school curriculum.

We will be sending out additional details before the end of this week. These revised arrangements will commence on Monday 11^th January.

For this week only, we are asking children to access home learning activities via their class page on our school website - https://www.ol-wayside.solihull.sch.uk/class-pages/

Remote  Learning - Access to Technology

Our remote learning arrangements are reliant on children having access to appropriate IT devices at home.  So far the Department for Education has provided Our Lady of the Wayside School with three devices. We do have a very limited number of school devices (laptops) which we are prepared to loan out to families. This is on the understanding that parents agree to our home school IT device agreement.  Please complete the form below to request a school laptop. We cannot guarantee that we will have enough laptops to meet expected demand.

https://forms.office.com/Pages/ResponsePage.aspx?id=_8XsNkcZBUCdDFgUlropG1SU2t85zuRKutdK80ydBFhUODZZVzhNNzhFRTgyTFpWV1ZJOEhOMlNLMi4u

Our Lady of the Wayside Nursery Update

Nursery will remain open for all children this week (Wednesday 6^th January to Friday 8^th January). Commencing next week, Nursery will be open to all children on a Monday, Tuesday and a Wednesday; Nursery will be closed to children on a Thursday and Friday.  Nursery key worker parents who require a school place on a Thursday and Friday will need to book places using the key worker booking form – please see following key worker note.

Key Worker Children – Requesting a School Place

Last night (Monday 4th January) Boris Johnson PM gave us a very clear message, everyone is to stay at home to protect the NHS and to save lives. Our expectation is that every child who can be safely cared for at home should stay at home. Accessing school based provision should be the last resort when every other option has been exhausted. 

Earlier today, the school office sent an email to all key worker parents (based on information provided by parents earlier this week) asking key worker parents to book a school place for the remainder of this week.  On a Wednesday key worker parents will receive a new booking form which will allow them to book a school place for the following week.

For key worker children, the timings of the school day remain the same. Children will need to wear their school uniform and school lunch is available as normal.

Solemnity of the Epiphany of the Lord

Tomorrow we celebrate the Epiphany of the Lord. Fr Andrew will celebrate Mass for the children of the school at 9:15am. All children and families are welcome to attend Mass via the following link:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VwfOsQp2law&feature=youtu.be

Please keep a close eye on your emails over the next few day, a lot of additional information regarding remote learning will be emailed before the weekend.

Finally, I thought I would share today’s reflection from our ‘Walk with Me’ booklet which seemed particularly appropriate for today:

 Are you a ‘glass half-full’ or a ‘glass half-empty’ kind of person? Do you look on the bright side or the dark side? Can you see the good in any situation before you see the bad? Do we really have a choice? Faith teaches us that we do – we can strive after hope over despair, love over hate and light over darkness. In Christ, the cup isn’t half-empty or half-full but overflowing with God’s grace and goodness. God makes very blessing, every gift, every grace available to us. This is at the heart of every invitation of Jesus when he says: ‘Come, follow me!’ He leads us to the cup of life which is overflowing.

We pray,

Thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, for blessing me in the heavenly realms with every spiritual grace. Amen.

Thank you all your kind messages of support over the last 24 hours. We will continue to do our very best in these most challenging of circumstances.

Mr Taylor