Rook’s Nest Academy Newsletter
Issue 44 – 23rd October 2020
Dear Parent/Carers,
We have reached the end of a very busy first half term. Thank you, parents, for your support with the ever-changing climate we have been working in. Unfortunately, our return after the holidays will potentially see more changes for us and maybe increased absences due to Covid related issues.
We appreciate the way in which parents have kept the Academy up to date with your family situations and this has enabled us to keep running as smoothly as possible without needing to have any large-scale disruptions to teaching and learning. We know we are approaching a tricky time in terms of the usual winter illnesses. With this in mind we need to inform you of how the Academy intends to support your child’s continued learning even if they are not attending. The DfE have made clear expectations of school leaders as to what remote teaching needs to include. Our policy for remote learning covers all the elements required (Remote learning policy) but we still need to gather some information from parents. We need parents to inform the Academy, through the slip provided in this newsletter, if their child does not have access to a suitable device to work on (not on a mobile phone) or does not have access to the internet at home.
Children should be bringing home details of their computer logins with them today. If these do not arrive home with your child tonight please contact the Academy after half term for these to be re-sent. Lower foundation children will receive these details after the half term.
| Children in Reception- Year 2 | Children in Year 3 to Year 6 | |
| Individual Academy email and password |
No |
Yes |
| Access to Accelerated Reader |
Some children |
Yes |
| Access to Education City |
Yes |
Yes |
| Access to TT Rockstar’s |
Yes |
Yes |
| Access to Prodigy | No | Yes |
Email contacts for years 3-6 will be on an individual basis, children from Reception to Y2 should email homework@rooksnestacademy.co.uk
Extra Wednesday sessions
A huge thank you to all those parents who arranged their family around the extra hour of booster sessions we have been holding this half term. We have really seen a positive impact on your children’s catch up. Staff have assessed the children’s learning and we have contacted the parents of children whom we would like to spend some extra time with. If you have not been contacted by the Academy then your child’s finish time on Wednesdays, after the holidays, will go back to the normal time.
Spend a penny project
We will be holding our next collection for the toilet renovations on Friday 6th November. We are trying to look to use the first Friday of each month as the collection day. Thank you for your continuing support.
Well done Nursery, Reception and Year 1, your ‘spooky’ dress up raised £160 for our “Potty Project”.
Cycling
We have successfully arranged cycling lessons for Y5 children to begin in school the week beginning the 9th November until 16th November. Relevant information has already been shared with parents but this may have an impact on paths up to school. Please ensure that if you are waiting to enter school you stand across the road from the Academy or at least be mindful of keeping the paths uncongested for other users to get past.
Flu Spray
A reminder to those parents who have signed their children up for this that it will take place on Wednesday 2nd December.
Children in Need
Friday 13th November is Children in Need Day. Children are allowed, on this day, to come in to the Academy out of uniform and can dress up in their favourite costumes if they wish. Parents can send in a donation for the Children in Need fundraising and we will hopefully have a fun day.
Text messages
I have had a recent comment from one of our parent governors regarding the text messages that we send from the Academy often being “blunt!” I hope this isn’t a feeling shared by all our parents but feel it would be useful to explain why if they are perceived in this way. The problem we have is that if we send a text it is usually because we need to get a decent amount of information out quickly. The text provider we use only allows 300 characters and those include punctuation and finger spaces. In order to give the required messages we often have to dispense with unnecessary niceties. We hope going forward that parents appreciate it is not our intention to be ‘direct’ with texts but to provide all the information we can, succinctly.
Christmas Dinner
We will probably not be able to carry out much festive fun and frivolities for the children in the run up to Christmas but we are adamant that they should not miss their Christmas dinner. We intend to hold this on the 9th December and further information will follow next half term. We hope you will sign your child up for it.
Child care in the holidays.
Did you know that we run our own holiday childcare facilities at RNA?
FLYERS is open over each of the half term holidays for parents who need care for anything from half a day to the full weeks. If you think you would benefit from this facility, we are currently taking bookings for the Christmas holiday (we also still have some capacity for this half term). Please contact Mrs Saville to reserve a place.
vsaville@rooksnestacademy.co.uk
I hope that everyone has a relaxing half term holiday and I look forward to seeing you all back on Monday 2nd November.
Ms Dawson
————————————————————————————————————————————-
PLEASE COMPLETE THIS SLIP AND RETURN TO THE ACADEMY IF YOUR ANSWER TO EITHER QUESTION BELOW IS NO (tick if answer is no):
Does your child have access to a suitable device to work on? (not a mobile phone)
Does your child have access to the internet at home?
Childs name ————————————————————————————————————-
Childs class __________________________________________________