School Closure-Home Learning

Dear Parents and Carers,

RE: SCHOOL CLOSURE, HOME LEARNING ADVICE

Drake Primary School will close at the end of the day on Friday 20th March, 2020.

With school closed, teachers will work to provide support for continued learning during school hours. 

On the school website we will be putting up curriculum activities for your child whilst we are closed. We will also provide updates for any information about any schedule for re-opening.

If your child is unwell during any period of closure they should not participate in any school work.

Your child’s class teacher will post a timetable or suggested set of activities for each week. These activities are not meant to direct children but support parents in helping their children with home learning. We understand that every family’s circumstances will be different and that outcomes from home learning will vary. We want children to carry on learning as much as they are able. We’re sure the great majority of children will be excited to spend some time learning in a different way.

There will be a wide range of  curriculum activities and tasks set for your child. Some tasks will be set on Google Classroom. (www.classroom.google.com) Your child has a Norfolk County Council (nsix) email address to use to log in. They will also have a password and a joining code for their class area. (Children have practised this at school.)  Class teachers will be able to monitor, mark and feed back on children’s work throughout the school day. They will also be able to set different tasks in some circumstances to adapt to children’s different learning needs. On the school website at www.drake.norfolk.sch.uk/online-learning/ there are Year Group pages where teachers will post a range of useful links to learning activities that children can do at any time which will also support their learning. These may include PE/fitness activities, life and learning skills, reading, writing, maths and topic work. Some of the work will be for consolidating children’s previous learning from the autumn and spring terms and some will be for researching new topics or exploring science or creative subjects. Teachers may also post links to websites to support reading which is the most useful and important activity you can do with your child. 

Home learning is only ever a support to learning in school and we do not expect parents to act as teachers. However, children are able to gain greatly from working on activities both by themselves, with friends or siblings (if possible) or parents and other family members. 

Please do not attempt to contact class teachers directly as they may be ill or self-isolating in their own homes. If class teachers become ill, their year group teacher colleague will continue to set and monitor work as much as possible. If there are any queries relating to home learning, please contact the school office email which will be monitored.

Thank you for your support at this difficult and unprecedented time.

Louise Rosen, Headteacher.