Dear parents and carers,
Thank you for your support and understanding during this time of very rapid change. I am sorry not to have been able to answer all your queries as swiftly as I would have liked, but things are gradually settling down, so hopefully we can have a time of relative stability for a while.
Remote Learning
It has been great to see the children at the Zoom meetings. From next week we are moving to Microsoft Teams. You should have received a letter about this, and your class teacher will go through the process with you. The move across will be over a period of several days to prevent too many changes at once; if you have technical questions, Katie Rayner in the office is your best first port of call.
If you do not have the technology to join the meetings, we will be in touch separately, so please bear with us as we sort things out.
Devices
Having been promised an allocation of one laptop from the Government to support the move to remote learning, that has now been withdrawn. I know that several families are struggling to access the lessons, particularly when there is more than one child in the family. If you have any useable laptops or similar, or headphones, which you no longer use, or could help families with technology questions, please get in touch.
Class E-mails
The class e-mail accounts are now open. These must only be used for general queries about the learning and for communicating directly information it is useful for the teacher to know. Please be realistic about this – it is not a place for in depth discussions and lengthy correspondence and the office e-mail address remains as the place to send more detailed information. The teachers will be communicating with parents directly, but will also be teaching throughout the day. The addresses are Willow@ Ash@ Oak@ and Beech@ dr-souths.oxon.sch.uk.
Reception Admission
Applications for children wishing to start in Reception in September 2021 close on Friday 15th January. If you have a child of this age, please make sure you have applied for your place. There is NO automatic transfer from Nursery to Reception.
Dates for the year (provisional)
19/04/2021 Start of term
03/05/2021 Bank Holiday – school closed
28/05/2021 May Day – provisional
31/05/2021 Half term week
07/06/2021 Beech Class residential – provisional
01/07/2021 Sports Day – provisional
07/07/2021 Ash/Willow production (afternoon) – provisional
15/07/2021 Oak/Beech production (evening) – provisional
21/07/2021 Leavers’ Service
End of term
22/07/2021 INSET Day – school closed
01/09/2021 INSET Day – school closed
02/09/2021 Start of term