Friday 10th July 2020

www.st-johnscofe.hants.sch.uk 01256 324121

St John’s Newsletter

Learning, Loving and Laughing Together

Transition arrangements… I hope the year 3/4 children enjoyed their class calls with their new teachers today.

The year 1 and 2 children will have this opportunity next Friday, 17th July. The calls will be at the following

times with a link being posted in their current year group classroom.

Aruba - 9.30am

Greece—10.30am

Dominica - 2.00pm

Where a child is joining Dominica, Mrs Wynn will host the call as Miss Dellar (who will be present) does not yet have an

account on our system.

Remember to look out for the link to your teacher’s welcome video. These will be sent out on Monday.

All receiving teachers have now spoken with your child’s current class teacher and this week the children are being set some

transition tasks as part of their learning. More details can be found in Mrs Tunnicliffe’s entry on the final page.

Year 5/6 children in September— these year groups will also find out their morning groups for September next week. Again a

link to the teachers’ welcome video will be emailed and we are currently working on finding an opportunity for the children to

talk to their morning class teacher.

Nearly there… The end of term is fast approaching with 7 days of teaching remaining. I want to say a big thank you

to all parents for their continued support and efforts to keep the children engaged and motivated. We know it has

been a challenge to maintain the children’s enthusiasm and to create a learning environment in living rooms,

dining rooms and on kitchen tables but the level of engagement in the St John’s virtual classroom has been

consistently higher than the national average and this is a huge credit to parents and carers. As I have said before,

I am with you all the way - as I write, I have just dealt with my own child who has loudly claimed he can’t think of

anything to write just as my husband started a conference call!

If your child has found it a challenge to complete work at home, please don’t worry about it over the summer. Let

us get all children back to school in September, settle them in and then we will begin to assess where they are,

what they can remember and we will tailor work to meet their needs so we can begin to fill those gaps. For some

children this will be a quick process, for others it will take slightly longer. However, research into learning shows

that at the bottom of the hierarchical of need is the requirement to feel safe and secure. Without this, the child

will not learn effectively. Therefore, our focus in September will be on getting the children used to their new

classes, surroundings, routines and safe measures. Please give my teachers the time to settle your child. Some will

bounce back to school and just accept that things have to be done differently, others may find it temporarily

challenging and some may need additional support for a few weeks. Over the holidays, talk to your child about

returning to school, highlighting the positives about seeing their friends and learning at school rather than home,

and talk through their anxieties and concerns.

The government guidelines were published last week. Using the information we have been provided with and

what we have learnt this term, we now have a draft plan. We had a virtual staff meeting this afternoon to go over

the draft plan to check it works and nothing has been missed. We will then need to check a few operational

requirements and risk assess everything. At this point we will publish to you but this may not be before the end of

the term. However, even when I do this, please bear in mind there will be a huge possibility that things will change

again before the beginning of September if the virus infection rate begins to climb again or Basingstoke is put into

a local lockdown. Let’s all pray and hope this won’t be the case!!

New

Classes

Friday 10th July 2020

www.st-johnscofe.hants.sch.uk 01256 324121

Diary Dates

21/07/20 Last day of term - please note all children

MUST be collected by an adult.

22/07/20 INSET Day (5)

INSET Days 2019/2020

Wednesday 22nd July 2020 (5)

INSET Days 2020/2021

Thursday 3rd September 2020 (1)

Friday 4th September 2020 (2)

Dinner Menu

If your child is currently in school, please see below the dinner menu for the rest of this Summer term. Please note, there is

a slight chance the menu will change if the kitchen have supply issues.

Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday

Meat Sausage Roll Ham Sandwich/Wrap Tuna Wrap Hot Dog Fish Fingers

Veg Veggie Sausage Puff Cheese Sandwich/Wrap Pizzini/Pizza Veggie Hot Dog Quorn Nuggets

End of Year Gifts...

We’ve had several questions from parents about how they could

give an end-of-year gift to the adults in their child’s class, given

the various restrictions in place. Nothing is ever expected, but

the staff are always grateful for your kindness and generosity.

We’ve discussed this as a staff, and given the circumstances, we

would rather not have gifts brought into school for

various reasons: some staff are not in school, anything would

need to be quarantined and cleaned, and the weather may melt

things!

If you would like to give something, we have created a digital

wishlist of books on Amazon for the school library. If you

purchase a book and leave a message we will create a special

print with the message to stick inside the front of the book to

mark who gifted the book. The link to the list can be found

below:

www.amazon.co.uk/hz/wishlist/ls/28E52G0TXQ5IG?

ref_=wl_share

A road safety newsletter was

emailed out earlier in the

week to the year 6 pupils. If

you didn’t receive it and

would like a copy, please

contact the school office.

The road safety experts are

very concerned that many

year 6 pupils will be

unprepared to make their

first ‘independent journeys’ to and from their secondary

school. In usual times, there are many opportunities for

the children to practise but obviously this year, this

hasn’t been possible for many.

Cleaner Required

We are looking for a cleaner from September—7.50 hours per week, 4.00pm—5.30pm each day.

If you are interested, please contact the school office at: adminoffice@st-johnscofe.hants.sch.uk.

Year 6 athletics and leavers video

Well done to all year 6 pupils who returned to take part in the virtual athletics event. Hayley sent me some pictures of some

of the children and it was so lovely to see happy faces of children who had clearly enjoyed doing the activities. Thank you to

Hayley for organising this.

Next week, the year 6 staff will be posting the leavers video in the year 6 Google stream. I haven’t had the opportunity to

view it myself yet but make sure you don’t miss it. We might not have been able to do our usual events but we are trying

hard to find ways to mark the year 6s time with us.

Friday 10th July 2020

www.st-johnscofe.hants.sch.uk 01256 324121

Child Title Response?

Year R Transition Meeting

Year 2 Transition Meeting

LETTER ALERT!

Digital Learning Update! Well done to everyone who has been submitting work over the past couple of weeks. We have seen some fantastic creativity including zoo maps, zoo keeper talks and some amazing story books. Next week is our last full week of term. Usually in school, children would have the opportunity to write a letter to their teacher ready for September. We would still love for children to be able to write to their September teacher so the English tasks will help children to complete this letter. The final, best copy of the letter will be submitted on Wednesday or Thursday and the receiving teacher will read the letter and return the work. Please try to upload or e-mail in a copy of your final letter if you can, rather than just marking it as done. As far as possible, we would encourage you and your child to complete this task as it forms an important part of the transition process. For children who are in school, this task will be completed within school time. Year 6 As secondary transition is slightly different, Year 6 work will be reflecting on road safety and how to keep safe when walking or cycling. This work goes alongside the road safety letter sent earlier this week. We would encourage parents/carers to discuss the learning from our road safety tasks with your child. Mrs Tunnicliffe