Reps in attendance via Teams video link.

• Nursery 1 – Vacancy - come and talk to Mrs Curtis if you are interested in this role
• Nursery 2 – Danielle (Carter's mum); Jenna (Penny's mum)
• Reception-  Bethan (Jamie’s mum)
• Year 1 - Natasha (Charlotte’s Mum); Jenna (Betsy's mum)
• Year 2 – Claire (Beau’s mum)
• Year 4M - Bethan (Abigail’s mum)
• Year 4P - Natasha (Alexander’s Mum) 
• Year 5 - Vicki (Izzy’s Mum)

Apologies

• Year 3 & Year 6 Parveen (Zeesham & Faris' mum)

Matters arising:

Homework.

There were a few questions parents wanted clarifying around homework. The main points were

1. Should the children be completing all the homework activities that are set?
2. How do children allocate homework activities?
3. Spelling
4. Maths Seeds
5. Screen time
6. How are children practicing their handwriting?

Mrs Curtis explained children will complete homework activities in different rates, the idea is that over a week the children spend 3x30 mins doing Reading, Spelling and Maths.  The teacher sets the area of learning and the children are assessed as they complete activities, each child takes the time they need to complete the activity; but must spend at least 30- a week on that subject area. The teacher tracks how long each pupil has spent in total.

Mrs Curtis also shared that most of the classes are leaving their homework until the Wednesday evening, this causes the system to overload in the last two weeks which may contribute to the glitches some parents have reported. 

Reading Eggs

Question: Why are children completing duplicate activities on Reading Eggs?

Mrs Curtis explained there are pass rates for each activity, the system watches for hesitancy and accuracy, the software logs the length of time taken to answer each question, it will be repeated if it is not fully successful to ensure a greater depth and understanding.  For an overview of all the homework please look on the Marvellous Me homework that is set by your teacher each week. 

Maths Seeds

Question: Why have some classes moved to Maths Seeds as opposed to Mathletics?

The change is for Reception and Year 1, we decided to use a different app which was tested and reviewed over a long period because the children were finding Mathletics too hard and needed a lot of adult supervision to complete.  

Screen Time

Question: Are children having too much screen time?

Parents can spread the homework over a 10 minute daily block to reduce screen time. Mrs Curtis informed the group that the children have very limited screen time in school. Due to the Coronavirus the children use the Research Lab every 8 days because of bubble rules. Screen time consists of 1 hour 30 minutes over 7 days. 

Handwriting

Question: How are the children practicing handwriting as a lot of the learning is online?

Mrs Curtis has been discussing this with Mrs Rumsby who is English lead. They have been exploring ways to include writing at home. For example, it may be something that is included in the half term project which focuses on a writing based activity. We have been concentrating on pen grips and reminding children how to hold a pen correctly. By half term we need everybody back to where they were before Lockdown or beyond that point. Mrs Curtis discussed the different ways we can assess children. For example, there are various ways a child can be assessed through a mixture of activities for example, a spelling test or using a piece of writing.

Reading books are now coming home, children will be assessed and receive their new books when they move levels. All classes have guided reading and group reading every week. If the level of book coming home is too easy or difficult parents can contact their child’s teacher by email. Please remember all books coming home are chosen by the children and may not reflect their reading colour in school, some children may opt for an easier read.

We have made a slight adjustment to our reading certificates this year. Up to Year 2 the colours are about the ability to master phonics ready for reading much harder vocabulary in future.

Remote Learning/ Coronavirus Responses

Mrs Curtis discussed the plans in place. At the moment the government have said they are not shutting schools and we have our bubbles set in case of symptoms or cases.  If we have a case where there are symptoms of a child in school, then that bubble will go home until those symptoms are confirmed or negative; siblings of the sufferer’s family would be required to isolate not all the classes’ siblings. (Same for adults in the school)

Mrs Curtis shared with the group the Parent Action Plan and School Action Plan. The presentations can be found on the school website. https://www.ash-grange.surrey.sch.uk/coronavirus-information/

From next week we will be asking the children to access the remote learning in school so they understand how to log on and familiarise themselves with what a remote lesson will look like. Mrs Curtis shared that the government have allocated school chrome book devices. We have applied for an allocation of these and we are hoping if the inevitable did happen, that the class would come home with a chrome book device each to use during their lockdown. This would only work with one bubble, there would not be enough to cover additional classes. We are also busy buying and making up packs for teachers and support staff so they have the resources to teach at home. The plan is for each class to have an allocated learning block each day that way everyone is not trying to remotely access at the same time.

E.g. Year 6 may have remote learning between 9am-11am and Year 4 11.15am-1.15pm.

Assemblies and Productions

Question Will there be any events this year?

At the moment this is very challenging because we can’t have parents onsite, the first production this term is Harvest so what we are exploring is doing it through Teams. We are not able to have Key stage assemblies in the hall as we do not want to expose the children to other bubbles for more than 15 minutes. All assemblies are within the 15-minute guideline.

For our Christmas assembly we are exploring each class taking part through various activities, we still want the children to enjoy the celebrations but they will have to be organised differently. We are currently exploring Teams in greater detail along with the legalities of how we share the productions with parents. School disco’s will not be going ahead for the foreseeable future.

PTA We sent out on last week’s newsletter information about how PTA (Parent Teacher Association) will cover events. Each event for example Mufti Day, Mother’s Day and raffles are now listed on Scopay so parents will pay for events. The next event is Children in Need (Pyjama day mufti) parents will now make a £2.00 payment via the app. Sadly we can no longer accept food and raffle donations for events this will now be supported with money. All monies collected will go towards the charity of choice or our New Path and Playtime resources ideas.

Parent/Teacher Day

We will run Parent/Teacher day using teams, every family can book an online face to face meeting through Teams; timetable will be shared nearer the time.  We would still need to close the school so teachers were available, the only difference is it would be an online discussion as opposed to in person.

Dinner Menu

Parents asked if they could have a paper copy. You can find a menu 3 weekly menu on the school website at

https://www.ash-grange.surrey.sch.uk/school-lunches/  For parents who prefer a paper copies please ask at the office.

Our next meeting: 19^th November 2020, 9.30am via Teams