April 2020

Canon Slade Newsletter Headteacher’s Welcome

As we move into our 6th week of lockdown I hope that you and your loved ones are keeping well and are staying safe in these difficult times. Working and learning from home as a family has its challenges and it is understandable that this can be hard for many with the novelty of being at home starting to wear off. School continues to be closed to all but vulnerable and key worker students with a skeleton staff to supervise. The majority of staff are trying like everyone else, to work from home as recommended by the government. Guidance for what parents and carers need to know about schools and education during the coronavirus outbreak can be found through the link below: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/closure-of-educational-settings-information-for-parents-and-carers?utm_source=369bae49-4d50-422a-bef0-03f1685c6434&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=govuk-notifications&utm_content=immediate

As you can appreciate, staff are working hard to produce meaningful and engaging learning activities for all our students that will support learning and hopefully keep students busy throughout the day. Some departments are setting something new each week, others have set an extended piece of research/project type work, but they all have an indication of how much time should be spent on them. I appreciate that there may be difficulties in completing some of the work when multiple people in the same household are competing for the same equipment. This is why we have not specified a particular time of day to be doing any of the work. If students are able to do the work at the time they would normally have their lesson, this will help retain some of the normal daily structure but we understand that this may not be possible. The priority is that our young people remain engaged in some form of learning, keep a structure to their day, continue to read for pleasure and have daily exercise and fresh air. Although formal learning remains important there is much to be gained from learning a new creative skill and spending time together as a family. I hope the information contained in this newsletter is useful and allows us to keep in touch with our Canon Slade family. I look forward to when our school community is back together again and pray that all our young people stay safe and well. I would like to share with you a prayer by Barbara Glasson, president of the Methodist conference that reminds us that we are all part of a very special Christian community. We are not people of fear: we are people of courage. We are not people who protect our own safety: we are people who protect our neighbours’ safety. We are not people of greed: we are people of generosity. We are your people God, giving and loving, wherever we are, whatever it costs For as long as it takes wherever you call us.

Top 3 Reading picks for

April—Mrs Cairns

Elizabeth Acevedo is Winner of the Carnegie Award 2019. For fans of Tomi Adeyemi's The Children of Blood and Bone, Angie Thomas's The Hate U Give and Sarah Crossan's One.

The captivating debut children's novel from popular television historian Lucy Worsley is an exciting and charming glimpse behind the scenes of the Tudor court.

The stunning new story from the bestselling and award-winning author of TIME TRAVELLING WITH A HAMSTER, for any-one who loved the humour of WALL-E, the action of STAR WARS and the deeply touching emotion of ET.

Careers

Postponed—Year 10 Work Experience May 2020 We regret to inform you that due to the situation with Covid-19, we have had to cancel the Year 10 Work Experience Programme that was due to take place w/c 18th May 2020. All employers have been emailed advising them of this decision. If your son/daughter would also like to make contact to thank them for the opportunity, even though at this current time it could not be fulfilled. That would be a really nice gesture. I would like to thank you all for your support over the last few months in helping to secure a placement for your son/daughter. Regards Mrs M Cullum Careers Advice and Guidance Activities A number of website links for careers guidance and activities have been added to the school website. These are useful to both students and parents. These can be found under the Careers tab on our school website. Once you are on the Careers page, if you scroll to the bottom you will see the different links. Some of the websites require you to register with them, but all are free of charge. You can use your home or school email address to sign up. I hope you find these informative and helpful?

Useful Links

Bolton Council in collaboration with Bolton College,

have launched a new e-magazine for

Bolton residents with lots of

information and resources such as

volunteer and job opportunities and

home learning – please see https://

issuu.com/boltoncollege1/docs/

bolton_council_mag_v2

STEM (Science, Technology, Engi-

neering and Maths) Learning:

To support parents and carers with

home learning, STEM subject experts

have put together a selection of

activities and materials, all of which

are completely free for everyone to

access. Please copy the link below into

your internet browser to access the

resources. https://www.stem.org.uk/

home-learning

Y8 student making PPE—Holly Morris

“Over the Easter break I have been working hard with my mum to make Visors for the NHS. We have now made a grand total of 2,130 which have all

been sent out to various parts of the NHS such as GP surgeries, hospitals and paramedics/ambulance services around Wigan and Bolton. We created the

designs for the visors on 2d design and we printed them out using laser cutters. The material that we used was polypropylene for the headband and

clear PVC for the visors. I also made labels for each of the boxes to thank the NHS and to say who made them. We have had many people helping and supporting us. Overall the experience has been great and I have really enjoyed

being able to help the NHS.” Holly Morris – Y8

Curriculum Choices for next

year

Year 7 to 8 Language Year 8 to 9 GCSE Year 9 to 10 Science

These are currently being processed at the moment; once they have been finalised, parents will be notified of their child’s allocation by individual letter.

Performing Arts News

Shortly before school closed, we held

our successful Dance Show over two

evenings, in which our talented students

showcased their own choreography as

well as performing extracts from The

Lion King. The performances, enjoyed

by an audience of their peers, parents,

carers and staff, were superb.

The Senior Gala Concert should have

taken place on the 25 March and

unfortunately had to be postponed until

further notice due to the lockdown

measures. Closure so close to the

concert date meant that our musicians

were 'performance ready' and we would

like to recognise their hard work and the

hours they put into rehearsals in

preparation for this event.

We hope you will be able to appreciate

their efforts in the not too distant future.

Examination Results

The DfE has confirmed that pupils will receive A-level results on August 13 and GCSE results on August 20. It is important that students, parents and carers do not exert pressure on staff regarding the awarding of grades. Ofqual has set out a procedure that we must follow, and they have indicated that should staff be put under pressure, the exam board will consider that to be malpractice and may reduce or cancel that student’s grade for the affected subject(s). Please allow staff to make unhindered progress with this important task. Please be reassured that we have the best interests of our students at heart and will follow the guidance fairly. We have been asked to give the grade we believe students were ‘most likely to get if teaching, learning and exams had happened as planned’ using a range of information.

Online Working—key points

Departments are mainly setting work on Moodle

All students can access this by logging in with their normal network user name and password

If they then navigate to the Students Courses section each subject is listed and has sections for KS3 / GCSE / A level as appropriate

In those sections work is

usually broken down further

by year group

All Science work is being set

to individual classes using

OneNote – pupils have all

been sent invitations to the

relevant groups by their

teachers. These will be in

their school e-mails.

The Government has recently

announced some additional

resources that can be accessed

at home - BBC GCSE

Bitesize has been en-

hanced: https://

www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/

articles/zn9447h.

Also, video lessons, tasks and

quizzes for most subjects and

year groups have started to be

uploaded onto the Oak

Academy: https://

www.thenational.academy/.

Some staff have sent

reminders directly by email to the student’s email account

Updates from Canon Slade Library

Reading can be extremely beneficial for children, especially in the

current climate. A good book can transport them to a different place where they are not

worried or anxious and can help take their mind off things. The library is continuing to

support students at home with reading and has provided links available to parents and

students on Moodle/Resources/Library.

Emails will be sent to students to keep them fresh with ideas and reminders about the

links to help with their reading for pleasure and curriculum learning. The library has a

twitter page @CanonSladeLib and Library link on the school website.

During this time at home the following links will certainly help continue the reading

habit.

https://canonslade.eplatform.co/

Other options

https://readon.myon.co.uk/

https://stories.audible.com/start-listen

https://www.worldbookonline.com/ Username: wbsupport Password: distancelearn

Students can continue to use the Oliver library catalogue for writing book reviews to

recommend books to their friends.

https://canon-slade.oliverasp.co.uk/library/

Year 7 students should be encouraged to carry on quizzing books read at home on the

Renaissance Place website. https://ukhosted18.renlearn.co.uk/1893336/

Books with quizzes can be found https://www.arbookfind.co.uk/

Students have been assigned a reading target for the summer term and students

achieving their spring target will receive a postcard in the post.

Sign in details

Studentfirstname.secondname

Password: Library01

A thought from the Chaplaincy team

As Christians we have just celebrated Easter. We are rejoicing in the promise of eternal life, Jesus rose from the dead, and greeted

his disciples with a gift and greeting of peace.

Although we are not with each other to share in worship, we are called to share this gift of peace, which we can do by praying for

each other. Try it, it changes things! Pray for your friends and families and our school family each day. A great place to start is

with this verse; (Romans 15 13).

Look for the positives- During difficult times; it can be really helpful to try to look for

the positive moments in every day. A great way to do this is to challenge everyone in

your household to think of three things you are grateful for each day and sharing this

with others. You might start a jar of joy to save these up, or pop them onto a post it and

stick on a wall!

Attached you will find a 30 Day Wellbeing Challenge, this template can encourage young people to track anything they do each day for positive wellbeing and share this with each other.

Community Feedback

Over the last few weeks, a number of our staff have assisted in the production of PPE equipment for the NHS. Visors

and scrub bags have been produced in school and have been distributed to a number of local Hospitals, Hospices and

Care Homes. Below are some comments from groups who have received our donations.