23rd June 2020
Dear Parents/Carers,
I hope that you and your families are safe and well. I wanted to give you an update on our plans for the last 3 weeks of term.
We have already brought back a number of children in Reception, Year 1 and Year 6 as well as maintaining provision for critical workers. From the 29th June we will be increasing the numbers of pupils in Reception, Year 1 and Year 6.
We realise that it is important to try and give every child the opportunity to come back to school for 2 days before the end of the school year. This will enable them to see friends, say goodbye to their current teacher and meet their next teacher. Hopefully this will help to ease any anxiety that children have over starting a new year group in September. For this reason, the Reception, Year 1 and Year 6 groups will run from Monday to Thursday for two weeks from the 29thJune and finish on 9th July. This frees up staff and space in the last week to ensure all year groups have a transition opportunity before the end of term.
The plan for transition is to invite: –
· Year 3 pupils in for two days transition the week beginning 29th June.
· Year 4 pupils in for two days transition the week beginning 6th July.
· Nursery, Year 2 and Year 5 pupils for two days transition the week beginning 13th July.
· Reception and Year 1 transition will take place in school during the next two weeks.
You will receive a text message from school asking if you would like your child to take part in the two days of transition and we would appreciate a ‘Yes’ or a ‘No’ response so that groups can be planned for and staffed. Alternatively you can reply on Facebook as a private message but please include your child’s name or email willington@durhamlearning.net. Please DO NOT ring school. We will inform you of exact dates, times and other arrangements when we have final numbers as this will dictate whether we have to divide the children into two groups.
Staff have worked continuously since lockdown began, both online and with our critical/key worker children, including during Easter and half term holidays. For this reason, I am not planning on the school being open to any children over the summer holidays, including those of critical/key workers.
We are very hopeful that we will all be back in September, but obviously this depends on how the current situation progresses. For all of you who are doing a great job with home schooling, keep up the good work and stay safe.
S Cornforth
Headteacher
