Newsletters

Dear Parents and Carers,

In this Newsletter I want share and celebrate some of the exciting learning which is taking place at Belmont this half term and tell you a bit more about some of our forthcoming plans. But before I do that I do need to thank you once again for your ongoing support, especially your readiness to follow our COVID-19 procedures and protective measures.

Although we did have to send home 4 class bubbles before half term, so far we have had very few cases where pupils or adults working at the school have tested positive for COVID-19. Since half term our attendance has been improving steadily and last week we had 3 classes at the school with 99.3% attendance, with overall attendance at just over 95%. This is great news because children are not missing out on their learning, and if they do have to stay at home because they have been told to self-isolate, we are able to ensure they can access their learning online.

We are promoting lots of outdoor activities and learning as part of our curriculum this term, and to support this we have re-started our Forest School, which is taking place on the school field. At the start of this term we also installed a dedicated Outdoor Area for our specialist Stargazers provision and you will see pictures of this later in the Newsletter. Another initiative which takes learning to a new level outside is the Year 1 Belmont Story Theatre which has been set up in the school Quad. Meanwhile we have decided to use some of this year’s PE and Sports Premium to install an outdoor gym which will support PE lessons as well as fitness for Years 1 to 6.

All of this means that your children and our staff need to have warm clothes, jackets, hats, and gloves every day so that they can learn safely  indoors and outside, even in cold and damp weather. We also understand the importance of good ventilation in preventing COVID-19 infection so we are keeping as many windows as possible open in the school at all times. The heating is on but it is also a good idea for children to have several layers of clothing so they can stay comfortable indoors too.

In other areas of the curriculum your children’s teachers have completed baseline assessments for Reading, Maths and Phonics. They are using this information to plan for and teach “lost learning” due to the lockdown and school closure last term, so that all children are supported to catch up. We are now dedicating extra support for catch up learning across the school and this is supported by some additional government funding.

We also hope that you are finding our new school website helpful when it comes to finding out what your children are learning about this term and how you can support them. We have not quite finished our upgrade but we would love to get some feedback from you on what you like about the website, what you would like to see added to the website and whether you find the information in our Virtual Office useful. So please take some time to explore the Belmont School website and tell us what you think.

Please keep up your great support – remember to wear a mask when you are dropping off and collecting your children, and always try to keep 2 metres apart from people you do not live with when you are lining up outside.

Wishing you and your families good health.

Yours sincerely,

Ms L Shaw

Headteacher