The Journal S† LAWRENCE CHURCH OF ENGLAND

VOLUNTARY AIDED PRIMARY SCHOOL Dog Lane, Napton, Southam, Warwickshire CV47 8LU

Tel: 01926 812447 e-mail: office@stlawrenceprimaryschool.co.uk

www.stlawrenceprimaryschool.co.uk Head Teacher: Mr John Brine

Friday 4th April 2020 Red is used as we enter Holy Week

(starting with Palm Sunday).

Diary Dates

This Sunday is Palm Sunday - the day when Jesus was hailed as a King and he rode into Jerusalem—on a donkey.

April 6th - April 17th: Emergency key-worker cover to be located in Long Itch-ington Academy. A St Lawrence Member of staff will be there as needed.

Apr 20th: The start of the Summer Term and the resumption of the Home Learning programme continues.

To confirm: All trips events and activities have been cancelled for the Summer Term but if

school can resume in the traditional sense: it will.

Hello everyone and welcome back to our weekly celebration of all that has happened in the

St Lawrence School community over the past week.

It has been a privilege to speak to so many of you again this week, leave messages and receive some very cheery feedback during these most unusual of times.

We’ve had a few children in this week - and had a lot of fun doing the home learning projects (of course) and a bit more besides—have a bit of a band practice, there was some plant-ing of primroses, the decoration of an Easter Tree and a spot of creativity.

With normal routines so much in the air for so many, it might seems strange to think that so much remains as it ever did. Over the week for example, I loved to note farmers plant-ing the spring crops and watch hedge sparrows filling their beaks with the mosses that I had been raking earlier in the day as they perfected their nests: the rhythms of nature as they ever are.

We need to hold onto certainties wherever we can. For those who might be following the normal Sunday church read-ings, you might have noted that they have very much focused on the saving Love of Christ and how he raised up others in-cluding his friend Lazarus as he foretold his own destiny as the Son of God. From the promises made in the old Testament through a rainbow, to the promise of life everlasting through His resurrection, the messages are always of hope. The present disruption to our normality and the stresses that dominate for so many will, in time, diminish and be defeated: surely a hope for us all to hang onto at times and to celebrate in others.

Whatever your circumstances, may I wish you all a very happy Easter.

J Brine

Thank you so much again for all the effort that has gone into the home learning. I loved these pages where the Learning Intention (L.I.) was made crystal clear: To do English! Tick that box -

the learning intention was achieved!

We do hope that you all enjoyed the little video messages that each teacher has sent

to the children. Miss Shepherd told us that many of our children were missing their teachers and so we do hope that all feel just that little more

connected again.

COVID-19 UPDATE from a St Lawrence's perspective

The cleaning and disinfection of all the classrooms has continued to ensure that every precau-tion is taken to ensure that no virus is lurking in the school itself. We are continuing to take bio security very seriously to ensure that all staff and children in school are kept as safe as possible.

We really do thank you all for the engagement with home learning. Though there are the occa-sional hiccups with accessing certain sites etc, I know that everyone has made such a big effort to make it work.

No home learning will set for next week and over the Easter break but there is a Design Technology activity that is being shared by Mrs Rose following the Engi-neering Days earlier in the term for KS2 children. Everyone can have a go if they

want to though!

The updated details of our Home Learning for after Easter (beginning on 20th April) are on the following page.

Those who are eligible for Free School Meals (not Universal) have been contacted di-rectly by the office so that they can access support. Jo Joiner will be in contact with all families that this applies to when we move from the current arrangements to those that are being put in place by the government. New guidance is being issued: do look out for it.

Staff are timetabled again from the 20th April. I am expecting Miss Todd, Mr Delaney, Mrs Moss, Mrs Molloy, Rebecca, Jill, Roxie and Mr Camps to join me in the first week of the new term. Re-serves are in place if required. Thank you to Miss Foster, Mrs Rose, Vikki, Abigail, Jill, Rebecca and Celia and Mr Camps for cover-ing in the past week.

‘Social Distancing’ is so important and so therefore parents can only use this school based provision in accordance with government advice: and we

should still expect this to evolve. This is to help the country to keep going.

The same rules apply with regard to self isolation for any families that have symptoms - 14 days off.

Maths and Music stars that I know about! Thank you for the feedback with regard to the fun and learn-ing for those who were measuring volumes and finding their equivalents and then applying them to cooking and real life!

Lots of times table practice this week would have helped and … good to see some work on fractions.

Lisa Foxwell wrote: to let you know that on my lessons are going really well and I’m sure you will be very proud of all the children from school who are practising hard and sharing their performances through a WhatsApp music chat. I wanted to let you know that this weeks star is Elissa (Yr5) for fantastic practising and playing.

Mick Bisiker and Jacob R guitaring together over

Zoom.

Numbers and time

with Iona.

Home Learning will resume on the 20th April.

Work will be emailed to parents of children by teachers between the day before (from 3pm) to 8:45am. These emails may come from Miss Shepherd, Miss Foster or myself in the event that a class teacher is ill. Some might want to keep checking out your junk or spam emails!

MATHS: to be set daily using online or scanned materials that are differentiated as need-ed and will reflect White Rose Maths Plans. The youngest will be provided with a series of shorter tasks and may include some practical tasks and investigations. There will be a continued daily focus on fluency - these speed of recall of number facts such as timetables and number bonds.

ENGLISH: to be set daily and again reflect medium term plans. Each day to cover differ-ent areas with an expectation that children read from books at home. Provision will in-clude: spellings/phonics tasks based on the published weekly spelling lists; grammar and punctuation; a book review of what they have been reading (doesn’t have to be the whole book), a comprehension task and an extended creative writing task. Phonics tasks will be set on a daily basis for those in Reception, Yr1 and those needing support in Yr2.

TOPIC: to be set once a week ready for star ting each Monday- you might receive it on Sunday evening. Creativity is encouraged but they should include research opportunities and non fiction writing as well as art, DT and any place for music?

We’ll be moving onto Week Three ….

Wk3: Science: Reception/KS1 - Fieldwork and Habitat research. KS2 - Fa-mous Scientists relating to Biologists and Zoologists. These projects look abso-lutely great whether being studied at home or school!

Wk4: Back to Geog/Hist and the start of the 3wk cycle! This time it’ll re-late to Summer planned topics.

For Reception - we will be into seasides, sea life, pirates, treasure maps and treasure islands in the Summer. Maybe they’ll be lots of digging: who knows what will be found!

For KS1 - we will be on a Summer Safari to some terrific places such as Chi-na, India or maybe even Kenya looking for deserts, mountains, lakes and find-ing out what might be living there and what it might be like to live there too.

For KS2 we want to get to know the Geography of the local area - be able to use OS Maps, know about local structure of governance, be able to compare services in local centres of population and develop an understanding of the im-pact of past and current developments so that we might be able to understand the impact of future ones.

Wk5: Back to RE:

Teachers will communicate with parents and children (using school emails) and will give feed-back of work that has been completed in this way. Teachers are available via email between 8:45am and 4:00pm to answer any queries or questions relating to the work that has been set. I look forward to seeing more of what children have achieved and celebrating in the weekly Journal. Don’t think that this is just a one off!

Thank you all so much for sharing the thrills and spills of home learning! Do keep the pictures and anecdotes coming.

A happy church school that nurtures the unique talents of individuals and brings them together so that ‘they will soar on wings like eagles’ (Isaiah 40:31)

A happy church school that nurtures the unique talents of individuals and brings them together so that ‘they will soar on wings like eagles’ (Isaiah 40:31)

I’ve loved the KS2 Egyptian Projects that I’ve been able to see. I’m sure that lots of team points are going to be earned! Teachers are looking to extend the Class Dojo system to all classes from Easter so that every

point can be recorded and Mr Delaney can tell me which team has won the cup!

Amazing effort and commit-ment to

learning.

Thank you for sending work

back to school for us all to enjoy -

you are all stars!

More Egyptian treasures!

And some real treasures from children in Reception and

Little Lawrences. I know that the whole family has got in-

volved with Flo and her writing! Jack, Lillie, Timmy

and Emrys look busy too!

This was the week when:

Yr2 should have been enjoying a trip to Coombe Abbey Country Park,

When we should have had a production from our fabulous Yr 3 and 4 classes,

When we should have had our Easter Games and ...

When we should all have marked the coming of Easter at church.

It hasn’t exactly gone to plan but hopefully, it only takes a moment to look at this Journal to see that there is still much to celebrate right across the school family. We even had an alternative version of the Times Table World Cup with the introduction of the number bonds trophy for Yr2. I look forward to hearing which team won!

The Yr3/4 production of ‘Porridge’ was enjoyed even with so many missing, no costumes, a few days earlier than planned and a technical hitch or two. We did manage though to get a

few video clips for parents of these classes to enjoy.

The animation of the story of Easter created by Tom in Yr5 was really brilliant and well

worth a watch. It will, no doubt lift your spirits

as it did mine!

These Easter gardens are something to celebrate too. It is not too late to have a go at

making one as well!

And Beth (Yr4) lifted my spirits too with her piece with her school related thoughts and her thanks and praise. I agree, her focus on happiness is

such a key feature of the St Lawrence family!

Happy Easter to you all!

And … all sorts of writing from across the school with comprehensions,

grammar, spellings and a London bus thrown

in for good measure - see more Lon-don project work on the

last page!

Toby (Yr3) led the PE session for his sisters this morning and came up with lots of fun things for them to do. I know that lots of you have still been enjoying Joe Wicks, got involved in dancing or have simply gone for a bike ride, walk or run.

Olivia has just done her kickboxing grading live online for her next belt: she passed with merit plus! Well done Olivia.

More stars of the final week of the Spring Term - for all

manner of reasons!

Evie Rose is a very proud big sister to Baby Harry. Tanvi has a beautiful baby brother too. Both new brothers were

born on Monday! Bundles of joy -

congratulations to both Mums!

Stunning Easter Gardens from Louis, Archie and Sophie.

Oliver's Crown of Thorns to be placed on the

crucifix artwork that is

featured on the front page by

Oliver and Austin.

Do spend a moment look-ing at Tom’s animation as enjoyed by Bishop Christo-pher and Bishop John. It beautifully retells the story of Easter (as the culmination of his Easter project) in Lego as well as any profes-sional! A brilliant job done!

Jacob is cooking up a fine treat - for the very hungry caterpillar? The

Cox’s are having a go too!

Ollie (Yr4) keeping apace with develop-ments and getting a

head start in his prep-aration for next years

cross country!

Oscar’s Great fire of London Model, a magnificent model

of the Shard by Leo and Thomas is clearly proud of

his creations of London Landmarks.

And finally: I just wanted to thank you all in the school team (staff, governors, parents and children) who have contributed to the success of the past few weeks during these unprecedented times: there has been a huge amount happening as all of us adjust to the change. But adjust we have: thank you.

Three weeks ago I hadn’t heard of Zoom (other than as a descr iptive word or in reference to a dated car advert) but these days, I know that its all the rage. Even I have turned to FaceTime and most will know what a techno dinosaur that I am! We do know that there are questions about the security im-plications of such new ways of communicating at all levels of society but my biggest concern, that I need you to know that I am thinking about, is the safeguarding implications for our children. Do not think that online safety should be sacrificed at all costs. Are you keeping a close eye on what devices and platforms are being used and what is being said? I urge you think online safety and if you are new to it, the website has some useful initial guidance.

My Data Champions and safeguarding team are currently looking at the latest guidance and will share this with you at the soonest opportunity. Technology is such a brilliant thing as I am discov-ering but, long after this virus is defeated, we want to be still loving it and not cursing it when it has led to online arguments, online bullying and online safeguarding issues.

More Easter Story gems

The competitive spirit was alive and well for the Times

Table World Cup and Number Bonds Trophy.

I look forward to sharing the final results when I get them!