News and Views
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Home Schooling: Bulletin 3
Fri 27 Mar 2020After the first week of distance learning, we have listened to feedback from pupils, parents and staff. In the light of this, we will be making some changes to the way we make our provision for you and your children.
LOWER SCHOOL: Carry on as you are! It all seems to be going well and parents are using the two week pack of material flexibly so they balance learning with other family activities.
MIDDLE SCHOOL (Y4 - Y6): We will reduce the amount of work set for this age group, so that they can realistically complete it in a morning or afternoon, leaving the rest of the time free for other family activities. Form teachers will focus more on the core subjects - Maths, English, Science (and for Y6 French) - setting work that includes a core element that we hope all children will be able to do, plus additional material that some pupils may do at their parents’ discretion. Teachers will set time limits for each piece and ask pupils to let them know how long a piece of work has taken.
For other subjects, teachers will set work that can be completed over a more extended period of time - eg. a History project. More of the work will be flagged as optional and will be offered as a suggested activity rather than a required one. You as parents will know what works for your child in your circumstances.
MIDDLE SCHOOL Y7 - Y8 & UPPER SCHOOL Y9 - 10: The amount of work here seems more manageable for most pupils and families but we will still scale back so that the work set is enough to cover what pupils would normally expect to do in about 70% of a normal lesson. This will give time for pupils/parents to manage the technology and download/upload work. No additional ‘homework’ will be set. For Y10 more will be expected as they have to cover material in readiness for GCSE exams.
All GCSE Art students will still need to work on their portfolio as there would not otherwise be sufficient time when we get back to complete a portfolio of work. Y6 - Y8 and US French students need to continue working on language skills at about the normal rate. Google Hangouts will be used to facilitate Mr Burch undertaking speaking and listening activities for some classes.
Year 11 students are being encouraged to maintain learning especially in subjects they are planning to take at A level. Several have already contacted to say that they are doing this and we will provide targeted support as required. We are waiting to hear more from the exam boards about the way the grades will be calculated.
We are very grateful for the messages we have received from parents who are concerned about the health and wellbeing of teachers, some of whom are getting exhausted, especially where they have additional school responsibilities. In order to ensure that teachers are not overwhelmed, we are asking them to let pupils know when they (the teachers) are available online. Generally this will be during part of the daytime but not into the evening. Teachers will aim to respond to requests for help as soon as possible and generally within a day, but we will ask pupils to be patient.
Where possible, teachers will send out answers/markschemes, so that pupils and/or parents can mark work themselves and send the results in to teachers. This means that teachers will have more time to support those who are finding an aspect of the work difficult. It will not necessarily be the form/subject teacher who responds to the request for further help, as we will be asking teachers who are less hard-pressed to take on some of the learning support and marking.
We will be asking pupils or their parents to tell their teachers how long a piece of work has taken, so we can adjust future assignments in the light of what is achievable in a reasonable timeframe.
We would like these changes to be operative from next week. Further tweaks are likely to be made after Easter as we learn more about what works and what doesn’t.
As we discussed the situation yesterday as a staff, we recognised that from a spiritual point of view this period of school closure and social distancing is actually an important and a very special time. It is a unique opportunity for pupils and ourselves to draw near to God in a special way - to have a 'Selah moment'. In the Bible, extended times of drawing aside from others - Moses on Mount Sinai, Jesus in the wilderness, the disciples in the upper room before Pentecost - were always times of life-changing encounter which empowered those people in a new way when they came out of those experiences. We need to deliberately reduce expectations on everyone during this time to allow that to happen. Otherwise we could from a spiritual point of view be in danger of wasting what is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to find God in a special way in this time of crisis, because we are so caught up with trying to maintain the 'status quo' in terms of workload.
We also want to support families so they can use this time to home educate their children and not simply home-school them. Education for life is much wider than what children might receive in a school context. We would like all parents to experience this time as a blessing. This is a precious opportunity for families to do some of those things they have always wanted to do together but never had time for in the busyness of normal life. Hopefully many of our pupils will return with new skills and experiences that they could never have had in school.
We are so grateful to all who have sent messages of support and assured us of their prayers - it is good to be part of a loving community at this time. Do get in touch by email (info@cfschool.org.uk) if you have any questions.
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Home Schooling: Bulletin 2
Wed 25 Mar 2020We have been talking over the last two days to various families and staff to get a feel of how the distance learning is going.
For some families having the activity packs and online lessons is proving helpful in enabling you to structure your family’s day. We are hearing from others that you are operating in very challenging circumstances and the amount of work set is a bit too much and is adding to your stress. Some teachers are also getting overwhelmed.
So our message to you all is this:
- It is early days and none of us are going to get it right first time - we operate under grace and not law.
- We may ask staff to ease off the quantity of work set for all or some children by making some activities optional and by relaxing deadlines.
- Please prioritise the mental and physical health of you and your children. Only do what you can, please do not allow stress and anxiety to build up.
We will meet (online) as a staff tomorrow and adapt the CFS distance learning provision so that we can really make the most of this opportunity to do things differently and make time for families to spend time together doing things they had always wanted to do but never could.
Once again, thank you so much for your prayers, communications with us and each other, and for the many other indications of your support for the school community.
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Home Schooling: Bulletin 1
Wed 25 Mar 2020We plan to send out regular bulletins about the school community by email, and point parents and pupils to learning opportunities and links to interesting websites. Please regularly check the school website in the news section where we will also post the bulletins. I would also like to encourage parents to stay in touch through their social networks. It would be wonderful to find ways of uplifting each other, parents, staff and children alike.
The most significant news in this bulletin is that we have closed the school building as of today. As a result, the school phones will not be answered, and if you need to contact school for any reason, please send us an email to info@cfschool.org.ukWe had hoped to remain open with a reduced staff on site for key workers’ children. However, although a number of families had registered their interest, in the event the support needed was only for some days and only one or two children might have been in school at any one time. We’ve been in touch with each key worker family and have discovered that in each case the need was only occasional and often one parent would be at home in any case. We have also had more staff needing to go into self-isolation. This has meant that the school building cannot function as it should at the moment. We are considering the possibility of opening again with a skeleton staff for key workers’ children from the 20 th of April; but this will depend very much on the situation nationally, as well as any increased need for key workers’ children to be looked after.
In terms of Home Learning, I have heard that many parents and pupils have started their work enthusiastically and that many teachers are very busy with online lessons. We fully intend to continue supporting families with their children’s learning.Finally, I would like to thank everyone for your continued support. These are undoubtedly unprecedented times for the world, and I hope that you agree with me that as Christians we have a specific role to play in bringing the truth of the gospel alive to our families, for our neighbours and in prayer for the nations. At school over the last couple of days we have felt a real sense of the Lord’s presence in prayer and intercession for many things, and I trust and pray that we all remain in His peace amongst the national turmoil.
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Coronavirus, School Closure
Thu 19 Mar 2020Following the government’s advice on the need for schools to close, we would like to confirm that CFS will be closed from the end of the school day, Friday 20th March.
This decision obviously has very significant consequences for our whole school community. We are currently organising home-learning packs and online learning - you will receive an email from us shortly with more details.
We will continue to keep you informed about whether certain children can receive the home-learning curriculum at school in cases where both parents are what the government describes to be Key Workers. Our current understanding of this is that this will mainly apply to Primary aged children.
We want to thank everyone for your grace and understanding in these difficult days. Let us continue to support one another as a Christian community. May the Lord bless us and keep us, and prepare us for the ‘good works’ that he has prepared for us to do at this unprecedented time.
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BBC Young Reporter, Y8 - 2020
Fri 13 Mar 2020On 13 March Y8 at CFS took part in the BBC Young Reporter. The Y8 reporters worked very hard researching, scripting and filming various news reports. Links to our reports will soon be posted on this news report when they are uploaded to Vimeo.
News Reports:
3. Bubble Drink and other news