Letter to Parents 19th March 2020

Thursday 19th March 2020

Dear Parents

Staff have been busy both at home and today in school preparing home school resources for children to use.
It is our aim to provide three blocks of 4 weeks work.

These resources will take the form of on-line support in literacy and numeracy with teachers assigning appropriate tasks to all children throughout the school using the electronic programs ‘Mathletics’ ( numeracy ) and ‘Bugclub’ (reading ).

Teachers will also post tasks on the school website, again for each year group, in the Parents’ Area.

We will also send home written tasks in literacy including handwriting, comprehension, grammar/punctuation, Mathematic topic work including mental maths activities.

Spellings will also be sent home initially for the first 4 week period.

We will also include further associated mini-tasks for Key Stage 2 children.

Children in lower classes should of-course have any planned activities supplemented by practical activities, ideas for which parents can access on the internet.

Packs of ‘Transfer tests’ for parents wishing their P6 children to enter the Grammar School Assessment Test planned for November will also be available.

To get all of this together takes time especially for photocopying of worksheets and books with everyone using only one photocopier to print all work.
We would therefore ask you to be patient.
We aim to have these arrangements in place for Monday. We will divide the day into timeframes with parents/guardians being invited to come to school in small groups to collect their home/school ‘packs’. Parents will be made aware of these times tomorrow, Friday 20th March.

We are aware that parents will have a multitude of questions which they would like to ask us regarding arrangements which are apparently to be put in place by Government Authorities. At present we have no further information other than that which is already in the public domain. Please look to Public Health and Southern Area Education Authority/Department of Education websites for all updates as well as our school website at www.jonesboroughps.com

Again our one hope is that everyone connected with our school community stays safe.

Yours sincerely

Donal Keenan.