Newsletter 2 – Friday 1st May

PIREHILL POSTYEAR 1 NEWSLETTER

Dear Families,

This is the second of our updates to you all as one way of staying connected and keeping in touch. We hope you enjoy reading it.

HOME LEARNING

Welcome to our very first remote summer term! We hope you are all safe and well. It’s been a very different Easter break for us all this year. It was sad to not finish off the spring term with our usual Easter service at St. Michael’s church. This normally gives us all a real boost as we meet together, listen to the choir and sing our joyful Easter songs. These are definitely strange and challenging times. We all miss the children very much, but we must follow the government’s guidance to keep everyone in our community safe. Just because we’re not all in the same building, doesn’t mean we can’t have some fun together! Your child has lots of learning and activities they can get stuck into over the summer term. We hope you have had chance to look at the new summer term home learning on our year group page. We continue to really enjoy seeing the children’s fantastic learning at home. You have all exemplified our Pirehill principles by living life in all its fullness, even in these difficult times. Your time and effort at home is really appreciated. Please keep on sending your photographs to office@pirehill.staffs.sch.uk. Remember you don’t need to have Twitter account to access the items and photos we upload, just go to our school website an click the Twitter link in the top right hand box. https://www.pirehill.staffs.sch.uk/.

Just a reminder, we have a Home Learning Support email service: homelearn@pirehill.staffs.sch.uk This service will provide you with advice and guidance if you are unsure about any of the home learning activities, but please do not send in work to be marked as this simply would not be manageable.

We’re realistic about what pupils will be able to do during this period, and we want you to be too. You're not expected to become teachers and your children aren't expected to learn as they do in school. Simply providing them with some structure at home will help them to adapt. Please don’t worry about your children getting behind with learning. Everyone’s in the same boat, and when things get back to normal we’ll make sure we get everyone back on track.

NEWS FROM MRS HARLEY…

Hello Year 1!I am missing you all very much; I really hope that you are all keeping happy, healthy and busy in these very different times! Thank you to those of you who have been sharing your photos and news with us. It’s great to read and see how you are all getting on! It has been my birthday since our last newsletter… it was strange being at home and not meeting up with friends and family, but we still had fun together. Eloise and Oliver enjoyed my balloons and birthday cake!

I have been enjoying the lovely weather that we have had recently, have you? We’ve even had some BBQs for our tea a few times. We have been outside in the garden as much as we can. Eloise and Oliver have been able to play with their water table and their paddling pool, which they have loved! Have you had any special toys out when the weather has been warm?

How did you all spend your Easter? – I’m sure that many of you will have had lots of Easter Eggs to enjoy; you’re probably still working your way through them, too! I had 4 – one was a really big Ferrero Rocher one! My children had an egg hunt in our garden and they collected them in their Easter baskets – they found lots! Eloise wanted to make an Easter bonnet, so we made that together one afternoon – she enjoyed sticking on lots of stickers, ribbons and

chicks.

Our street all took part in a challenge to make a scarecrow to show our appreciation for the NHS and put them outside our houses. Eloise wanted to make a fairy, so we created an ‘NHS fairy’ – complete with stethoscope, wand, NHS t-shirt and a tutu! Why don’t you have a go at making a scarecrow, too? If you do,

be sure to send us a photo of it!It has been nice being in school – although it’s not the same without all of you! We have been making kites and had fun trying to make them fly. We have also made birthday cards for Captain Tom, who is now 100! The last time I checked, he had raised £29 million for the NHS – a truly inspirational man! He walked 100 laps around his garden and he has just broken the World Record for being the oldest person to have a number 1 song in the charts! I wonder how many laps of your

garden you could complete – maybe you could see how many times you could run, jump, hop or skip around it?

I am sure that many of you are starting to miss seeing your friends and family sometimes, and this is totally normal. We try to do a family and friends quiz over the internet once a week – to see everyone’s smiley faces. It’s great fun! Maybe you could come up with a quiz of your own, for your friends and family? I’m sure your grown ups will help you with it. Try to keep smiling – hopefully we will all be able to see each other properly again soon! Thinking of you all lots!

Lots of love,Mrs Harley xxx

NEWS FROM MRS SPIVEY…Hi!

I hope you are all okay and making the most of all this extra time we have had at home. We have had some lovely weather again over the last couple of weeks so my girls and I have been in the garden having fun. Eden had a swing ball set for her birthday this year so we’ve all been playing with that. It’s been fun seeing how many times we can hit the ball without missing a hit. I remember playing this game with my sisters when I was little and us getting very competitive we each other! Florence has a little basketball net too and she’s been busy practising aiming into the net. If you have a ball at home can you make a target to

aim the ball into? Each time you score you could win 2 or 5 points, this way you will practise your counting in 2’s and 5’s! As an extra challenge, can you count backwards in steps of 2’s and 5’s?

On one of our daily walks we looked for interesting sticks and stones. One day we got the paints out and they painted them however they wanted. You could paint a colourful rainbow on yours or a bright sunshine, just like the ones we have been displaying in our windows. You could even paint on your stones some of the digraphs we have been learning in phonics this last term. What words can you make using all the different sounds?

We have loved watching our peas grow! The peas in pot number 2 were slow starters and we didn’t think that they would grow, they soon caught up though! Our peas have grown so fastthat we think soon our ours will be ready to plant outside. We will need some sticks to keepthem upright though as they are likely to fall down without any support. What is your favouritevegetable? If you have any left-over vegetables you could be creative and make your ownrepeated patterns using vegetables and some different coloured paints.

During Easter the girls had lots of fun searching for Easter eggs too –the Easter bunny was kind enough to even leave one for me andMr Spivey! Mmmm yum! I hope you had lots of fun during thelong Easter weekend too.

Take care, love fromMrs Spivey

NEWS FROM MRS GOODRIDGE…Hello year 1!

Gosh it seems like a long time since I have seen you now. I hope that you all enjoyed your Easter time and that you managed to have some special time with your family as well as eating some yummy treats! I have resumed my role as Frankie’s reception teacher and we are slowly starting to enjoy our home schooling. Some days we don’t do all that we set out to do and some days we have been known to watch lots of Disney+. What is important is that we are doing our best and not giving up if we find something tricky!

I hope that you are all enjoying being at home and working as hard for your grown-ups as you do for us in school. Frankie’s teacher sent a lovely message and I would like to share it with you. I think I have at least one of each of these days.

“If you have a structure to your day, are working out and managing to homeschool your kids without pulling your hair out - YOU ARE DOING A GREAT JOB!!!

If you are sometimes sticking to a timetable and taking time out for yourself whilst doing some fun stuff with your kids - YOU ARE DOING A GREAT JOB!!!

If you are barely getting any work done, haven't yet managed to get your kids out of bed before midday, but are still managing to keep them happy and busy - YOU ARE DOING A GREAT JOB!!!

Please don't worry if you feel you are not getting all or any of the daily home learning done! - YOU ARE

DOING A GREAT JOB!!!”

We have been on lots of walks and have been looking for lots of bugs on our bug hunts. How many bugs can you remember learning about last year? We need to create a bug hotel and I have taken lots of inspiration from the ones that you created in reception. We have also been creating and eating lots of wonderful baked goods with the help of YOUTUBER Cupcake Jemma. Her videos are great to follow and all her bakes are delicious. If you enjoy eating and baking cupcakes click on this link to load one of her videos. Please send us in a picture of your creations!https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lC51CynVHAUhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dud8GyyBZGw (vegan)When I have been in school we have started to think about and research VE Day as it will soon be the 75th Anniversary. Can you find out any information? What will we be celebrating and why? Can you remember which countries are in the UK and what our flag called?

Love Mrs Goodridge

SUPPORTING YOUR WELLBEINGDuring this difficult time we wanted to reach out to let you know that, even though our school is currently closed to all but a few children, we’re still here to support your child and your family in whatever way we can. You might be noticing signs of increasing anxiety in your child as they’re spending more time indoors and outside of their normal routines. For pupils ages 3-6 years these might include: Regressing to behaviour they’ve outgrown, such as thumb-sucking or bed-wetting, showing greater fear at being separated from you, tantrums or trouble sleeping. For pupils ages 7-10 years these might include: Expressing sadness, anger or fear, sharing false information that they’re hearing from their peers or seeing online, wanting to talk about coronavirus all the time, not wanting to talk about the current situation at all or having trouble concentrating. We’ve put together some resources to help you support your child. We hope you find this information helpful.Deal with the news head-on and talk about it openly and calmly, giving them the facts. Children pick up bits of information from their friends, from the news and from listening to adults talking around them – but they can misunderstand what they’re hearing. Teach them how to know if information they find on

the internet is reliable. Explain how some stories on social media may be based on rumours or inaccurate information. Encourage them to take breaks from listening to or reading the news – overexposure isn't helpfulGive them age-appropriate information – take a look at:

BBC Newsround hub  – regularly updated with information and advic #covibook  – for under 7s Children’s guide to coronavirus – a download from the Children’s Commissioner to help explain

the situation to children The e-Bug project is led by Public Health England and has a deicated webpage https://e-bug.eu/

Encourage questions as this will give them the confidence to reach out, if they have anything to ask. Be reassuringbut honest when answering questions – it's ok if you don't have all the answers. Be ready to answer the same question over and over as children tend to repeat themselves when they're feeling uncertain or worried, so you might have to answer the same questions more than once as they seek extra reassurance. Be a role model and recognise and manage your own worries first. Be open about your own feelings and let them know it’s normal to be concerned – for example, let them know you’re also finding the news a bit worrying and what you’re doing to stay calm.

Explain how our body's immune system protects us. It's constantly working against germs without us knowing. We can't and don't need to control this process. Explain that we're taking precautions against this particular germ because it's a new one which our bodies haven't come across before. Remind them how important it is that they eat healthy food, sleep and exercise, as this helps to fight germs. Keep doing your bit to help children reduce the spread of germs by reminding them to maintain good hygiene like bathing daily and wearing fresh clothes and encouraging them to sing 'happy birthday' twice when they're washing their hands.

Some children are naturally more anxious, such as those with existing phobias or obsessive-compulsive disorders. The current situation can make those anxieties worse. Try to get them to do activities such as counting, ordering and sorting tasks which can help them calm down. Encourage them to use relaxation techniques such as controlled breathing. Look out for obsessive or compulsive behaviours and try to get ahead of them early by challenging unhelpful thoughts and assumptions. If you’re worried about your child’s anxiety, YoungMinds is a charity dedicated to children’s mental health. They’ve opened a parents’ helpline for confidential, expert advice. You can reach them at 0808 802 5544. If your child would like to speak with someone confidentially, there are helplines and websites specifically for them.

Messages especially for you from our terrific team of TAs …

ORGANISATION CONTACT INFORMATION

ShoutFree, confidential support via text, available 24/7

Text SHOUT to 85258 in the UK to text with a trained crisis volunteer who’ll provide active listening and collaborative problem-solving.

The MixFree confidential telephone helpline and online service that aims to find young people the best help, whatever the problem

Call 0808 808 4994 for free (11am to 11pm daily) Access the online community Email The Mix

ChildLineConfidential telephone counselling service for any child with a problem

Call 0800 1111 any time for free Have an online chat with a counsellor (9am to midnight

daily) Check out the message boards

NSPCCChild protection charity

Phone: 0808 800 5000 for adults concerned about a child (24-hour helpline)0800 1111 for children (ChildLine’s 24-hour helpline)

Website: www.nspcc.org.uk

Cruse Bereavement CareSupport for grief and bereavement

Phone: 0808 808 1677 (Monday to Friday, 9.30am to 5pm)Website: www.cruse.org.uk

SamaritansConfidential support for people experiencing feelings of distress or despair

Phone: 116 123 (free 24-hour helpline)Website: www.samaritans.org.uk

RefugeAdvice on dealing with domestic violence

Phone: 0808 2000 247 (24-hour helpline)Website: www.refuge.org.uk

Bye for now ….

Love from The Year 1 Team

Proud, Independent, Respectful, Enthusiastic, Happy and Healthy, Intelligent Individuals who, Love Learning and Love Lif

Mrs O’Connell says, “Hello Year 1's! My children and I have decided to have a sunflower growing competition so we have been busy planting lots of seeds!! I think I will win though as my children seem to have forgotten to water their seeds already!! We have also been making lots of salt dough! Have you ever tried it? It's so easy! All you need is 1 cup of flour, half a cup of water and half a cup of salt. It's great fun and you can make lots of different shapes! We made some animal shapes and flowers! We painted them in lots of lovely, bright colours and put them in the garden! I certainly miss all of your cheerful faces and can't wait to see you again soon. Keep smiling! Lots of love Mrs O'Connell x”

Mrs Shermer says, “Hi Year 1, hope you all had some fun over the Easter holidays! I am keeping busy at home – a challenge last week was to learn how to do some plumbing to replace a broken tap! I was a little bit scared but had lots of advice from friends and they gave me the courage to try. I was very proud of myself for learning a new skill. My eldest son will be 15 this week, so I have some baking to do. I hope those of you who have birthdays during this time have managed to have a lovely day. There will be lots of parties later on, I’m sure! Stay safe everyone!”

Mrs Sanderson’s message:” Hello year 1. On Saturday I celebrated my birthday. It was strange because I wasn’t able to be with my family and friends but I still had a lovely day. I facetimed my family, I talked to my friends, my neighbours sang happy birthday and I was sent flowers and cards. Mrs Ecclestone left a present on my doorstep, some fancy tea and a lovely mug! I hope you’re all looking after yourselves and your families and I hope I’ll see you all again soon.