Welcome to our new Reception class families from outside of our Nursery

Dear New Reception parent/carer,

 

Welcome to King Edward Primary School! 

As you will already know, the Local Education Authority has informed me that your child is due to join our Reception year at King Edward Primary School in September 2020.  On behalf of the staff, Governors and children, I would like to welcome you to our school community.

Despite these challenging and unprecedented times, we are finalising plans to ensure that your start with us is as smooth and informed as it would be in normal circumstances and that you have all the information that you need for when your child starts.  

Our Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) Leader Mr Denton, has already contacted your child’s Nursery.  Thank you for confirming your contact details, as this enabled us to get in touch with you all remotely as soon as possible.  This is also going to help us to stay in touch with you between now and September.

As part of contacting your child’s Nursery, we have asked them to complete a transition form. This lets us know how your child learns, their likes and dislikes and any other information they feel would help us give your child the best and most well-informed start in Reception as we can. The information they give us is invaluable. We would normally visit your child at their Nursery. We are unsure at the moment when or if this will be possible. 

We also ask you for valuable information about your child.  We would really appreciate it if you could complete a transition form for us as soon as possible.  We will send it to you in a link at the beginning of next week.

On that note, we are a paperless school, where at all possible!  This has proved invaluable to us and our families during these challenging times.  In practise, this allows us to collate and share valuable information from you and with you, via text links like this.  We will also be able to share valuable information with your child, also via text links to you!  Whilst schools remain physically closed for face-to-face learning, it is going to mean that we will have to be creative in our transition and information sharing and we’ve already got some exciting ideas!

 

Visits to our school and meeting you and your child

We would normally be sharing a date with you to come and visit our school.  This visit is for both you and your child, to meet myself, their teacher and to find out valuable information.  I am extremely uncertain if this will be possible.  As a school, we have no more information about when schools will reopen for face-to-face learning than you.  I watch the daily Government briefings at the same time as you.  It will while watching those briefings, at the same time as you, that I will know when children will begin to return to schools.  Even when they do, the challenges will be vast, as I’m sure you can appreciate.  I am proud to say however, that we are providing childcare to our key worker families throughout this lockdown, whilst at the same time, we are providing daily learning and well-being support for our children and families.  I am very proud of our staff team, our children and our families.

 

Despite the current challenges and in the hope that it may be possible to meet you and your child in person as we usually would, please keep the following date free.  This will only go ahead if it is safe to do so.  

If it is safe to go ahead, I will need to be guided about how many of you we can invite at once safely, so we cannot confirm a time yet. We may need to invite you in small groups, but we will get in touch with you to confirm the time at the earliest possible opportunity if it’s safe to do so. 

 

Please keep this date free in case it is possible to meet you all. It will be the only date we will offer so I thought you would appreciate the date as soon as possible. 

 

Thursday 2nd July 2020

 

If this date can go ahead then you AND your child will be able to meet their teacher and visit the classrooms and learning environment.

 

 

You will be able to:

•             Meet your child’s teacher.
•             Collect a School Brochure, giving details of School policies and routines.
•             Talk to staff.
•             Ask questions.
•             Order items of school uniform; (we accept cash, cheques made payable to King Edward Primary School and card payments with orders).

 

What will happen if we cannot meet you all in person?

First of all, don’t worry! We WILL find a way.  If we cannot meet you in person, then we plan on doing each of the following:

•       Send you and your child a short video and leaflet showing you our learning environment and explaining what and where things are e.g. their classroom, outdoor space etc.
•       Asking to video call each of your children with you there.  This would be to introduce ourselves informally and just have a chat.
•       Invite you to a group video call to share the information that we would have shared in the welcome meeting. We would offer a few possible dates/times, both in the school day and at the end of a working day.  This will enable you to all find a time to join us.
•       Ring you separately to discuss your child, talk about the information you and your Nursery will have given us and also give you the chance to ask any questions.

 

What will happen about buying your child’s uniform?

We have placed a uniform order ready for our Reception children.  Therefore we don’t expect there to be a problem with you being able to buy our school jumpers and polo shirts etc.  The uniform list is on our website if you wish to have a look; we will also share it with you directly nearer the time.  So please don’t worry.  If need be, you will be able to order uniform from us remotely and then pick up your order when it arrives into school.  Anything which doesn’t fit we would simply swap. 

 

 What about any other questions you have?

I am sure that either via the meeting in person or our remote meetings, we will be able to answer all of your questions as we usually can.  Despite these challenging circumstances, we will make sure that you have all of the information that you need.

Over the coming weeks and months, as decisions are made about schools, we will keep in touch with you and make whatever plans it is safe for us to make.  We will ensure that you and your child are supported and able to feel ready to join us for Reception class. Whilst we know no more than you about the current plans for schools, we will respond to whatever we need to, in order to make your start with us as informed and natural as it would be in normal circumstances.

If you have any questions about this letter, or about the form we are going to send you to complete next week, then please don’t hesitate to contact us on the following email.  We will then contact you as soon as possible.

 

info@kingedward.org

 

Take care, best wishes and stay safe.

 

Kate Byrne                                Paul Denton

Headteacher                             EYFS Leader