Fulbourn Primary School
Dare to Discover
Friday 4th September 2020
Welcome back to the new school year! We are extremely excited to see you and your children again and have some wonderful learning activities planned. We know that some of you have been asked to quarantine as a result of holidays abroad. Please let us know if this is the case, but do not worry; all children at home will have access to their lessons or related activities via the Seesaw platform. Our aim is to support you and your family to follow guidance relating to test and trace and make it easy for your child to continue their learning from home, whether they are only isolating for a couple of days or in the event of full school closure. You will be sent access to a new and improved Seesaw account by Friday 11th September and teachers will be replicating school learning wherever possible using this tool. We understand that these are stressful times for you all and to further support you we have outlined some operational information below.
Seesaw and Home Learning
The full school curriculum will be replicated online via the Seesaw platform from Monday 14th September. All previous home learning documents will be removed from the school website as will any instruction relating to lockdown. All lessons will be represented online in Seesaw. Further information regarding logging in will be sent out next week.
Managing Behaviour During Covid
We have produced a leaflet to help you understand how we intend to manage behaviour once school returns. Our previous system of collecting house points and having golden time will not be suitable for this period. It was clear from the Dreams feedback that a more relational approach that recognises the potential anxieties resulting from the pandemic would be preferable.
As detailed in the leaflet, should your child harm another member of the community, or be persistently disruptive, you will be informed by letter and asked to attend a virtual restorative meeting. We hope that this method will make it clear to the children that we are all working together to ensure they learn how to improve their behaviour and develop empathy and compassion for others.
Children’s FAQ
Please see our Children’s FAQ document for answers to some questions that your child might have.
Drop Off and Pick Up
We understand that many families have children in different year groups that might have different start and finish times each day. I’m afraid in these cases, it is not possible to drop both children off at the same time. Please drop each child off at their correct time. We would also encourage parents and carers to not congregate around the school gates, so please do not wait at the gates for the intervening time.
Please ensure that no more than one adult accompanies children to school.
Gates
We are using four gates for drop off and pick up each day.
- The Main Gate is the gate on St Vigor’s Road, which is the gate that you are all used to using.
- The Cycle Gate is also on St Vigor’s Road, it is by the bike sheds.
- The Car Park gate is in the middle of the staff car park which can be accessed via School Lane. As always, please do not drive into the carpark.
- The Office gate is the gate by the school office accessed via School Lane.
Please wait at a social distance on the hearts that have been painted on the pavement.
Bikes
Children will not be able to leave bikes / scooters at school during the school day. If you wish to carry your child’s scooter home with you after dropping your child off then this is, of course, ok.
PE Lessons
As previously advised, children will need to wear the PE kit to school on PE days. Children in Greenland and Lapland will not have PE in the first week. But all other classes will have PE in the first week (including on their first day if this is relevant).
Student Absence
We will be creating a web form for reporting student absence which you will find in the Parents/Carers section of the website. This should be online by Wednesday 9th September. Please complete this as soon as possible in the morning if your child is unable to attend school. We will ask for the reason for the absence. If you fill out the form, you won’t need to phone or email the office.
If you would like to request student leave then contact the office and we will send you the Leave Request form for you to complete. We will not be accepting hard copies of this form.
Student Medication
If your child requires any medication, please notify the school office as soon as possible. Children will not be admitted into school with medication unless we have a completed administration of medicines request form sent by email (which we will verify by phone) and the medication is clearly labelled, in date and in a named Tupperware box (or another suitable container). Medication will be kept in a locked drawer in each class. The school will not be administering Calpol or equivalents to relieve temperatures. If your child has a temperature, a cough or complains of a loss of taste or smell they must be kept at home and you should notify the school. Please be aware that children who develop illnesses of any kind in school will be sent home.
Home School Agreement
If you have not already done so, please read and complete our Home School Agreement.
School Clubs/ Wraparound Provision and Wednesday Afternoons
As a reminder, we won’t be running any extra-curricular school clubs or programmes at the moment due to the current Covid situation. We will, of course, let you know if we are able to restart these later in the academic year.
After school clubs and any school-run provision will not be running on the school site on Wednesday afternoons. Kids R Us do include a Wednesday afternoon provision as part of their wraparound care. Please contact them directly on office@kidsrusoosc.com or 01223451050 (10am-2pm) if you wish to register for this time or any other wraparound care.
Lunchtime UK Packed Lunches
Lunchtime UK (our usual catering provider) will be not be providing hot meals at school, but they will be providing packed lunches. The menus are on the school website (https://www.fulbournprimaryschool.co.uk/this-weeks-menu/). As in previous years, when teachers are taking the register each morning they will ask if children have brought a packed lunch from home or if they want one from Lunchtime UK (and whether it is the first option or the vegetarian option) – they do not need to be booked in advance.
Children in Reception will not have lunch at school during their part-time phase. The afternoon group should have lunch before coming to school.
Children in Reception, Year 1 and Year 2 are entitled to a free lunch each day (Universal Infant Free School Meal). Children who qualify for income-related Free School Meals will not need to pay for lunch. For all other children in Years 3, 4, 5 and 6, school meals must be paid for via My Child At School – we will no longer be accepting cash or cheques. Due to rising costs, our provider has had to increase the cost per meal and meals will now be charged at £2.40. If your child has dietary requirements, please make sure the office are aware of them.
Cool Milk/ Fruit and Vegetable Snacks
We will not be getting milk from Cool Milk or fruit snacks delivered to school. Children are welcome to bring in a fruit or vegetable snack (no citrus, no nuts) if they would like. Again, we will let you know when we are able to restart provision.
School Uniform – Big Fish
Here is a reminder of our school uniform policy.
All children are expected to wear school uniform which includes: flat black shoes, a green or white polo shirt, grey or black trousers or skirt (not jeans) and a purple sweatshirt, jumper or cardigan. Children should appear neat and tidy with long hair tied back. Clothing should be appropriate and safe for learning and play. The children are also expected to wear appropriate clothes for Physical Education which includes: trainers, a school/ plain white or green t-shirt, black shorts and black jogging bottoms. Jewelry is generally not permitted in school, students with pierced ears can wear simple studs and must remove them during Physical Education.
We are using Big Fish to supply our uniform. This enables you to order school uniform for delivery to your homes. This is particularly important during this period of Covid-19, when we will be unable to have parents onsite and buying uniform from the office in the normal way. Once we are through the Covid period, Big Fish Schoolwear will make monthly free deliveries to school with all the uniform that parents/carers have ordered, but for the time-being, there will be a charge for home-delivery.
Our dedicated school page is now up and running on the Big Fish web site, https://www.bigfishschoolwear.co.uk/. This will enable you to place and pay for your uniform orders online. To gain access to your school page on the website you will need the following login information:
Username: Fulbourn
Password: PatchworkHorse
If you are in receipt of Free School Meals and therefore entitled to uniform items at no cost, then please contact the office if you have not yet done so. We will arrange for these items to be delivered to your child’s classroom for them to collect.
If you are at all unsure as to which size to order, please don’t hesitate to give Big Fish Schoolwear a call on 0115 970 5762 or email them at sales@bigfishschoolwear.co.uk.
Communication with the School
Sadly, we are unable to welcome parents and family members on to the school site at this time. This means that you will no longer be able to visit the school office. If you need to contact the school please email: office@fulbourn.cambs.sch.uk. Emails are filtered every day and we will aim to provide responses, where necessary, within a week of receipt. If you have a learning query please contact your child’s class teacher via the Seesaw platform or the relevant year group email account. Details will be sent out next week.
If your query is urgent, for example relates to health, safety or well-being please mark it as urgent and we will aim to get in touch with you as soon as possible.
Visitors to School
Visitors will not be allowed on the school site without a pre-booked appointment. If you have a question, please email the office (office@fulbourn.cambs.sch.uk) or phone the school. There is a post box on the fence by the office gate, so if you have something you need to deliver to school that cannot be dealt with via email then please use the post box.
Please ensure that your children have everything they need with them when they come to school. If you do need to bring something to school then you will need to come to the office gate and press the buzzer. You will then be asked to leave the item outside the gate. We will send a member of staff to collect it who will ensure that it is delivered safely to your child’s class.
My Child At School
If you are unable to log in to your My Child At School account then please contact the office as we will be able to reset your details.
Welcome Back to School from the Local Authority
The Local Authority has created a welcome leaflet with information regarding your child’s return to school. It has lots of helpful information, tips and tricks to help with adjusting back to school life after lockdown.
https://www.cambslearntogether.co.uk/asset-library/Welcome-Back-to-School.pdf
Volunteers
We’d like to say a very big thank you to the parents who have volunteered to help at school in September. If you are interested in volunteering and have not yet been in touch, then please do email the office.
Any volunteers that are able to support the school full-time will be allocated to a particular class bubble and will give the school capacity should support staff be ill for non Covid related reasons. As a result, if you volunteer at this time it could mean that you prevent the requirement to close classes and prevent further learning disruption.
We realise that this is a huge request but if you believe there is any possibility that you could support the school in this way and/or would like to discuss it further, please get in touch.
PE Kit
Any named items of PE kit, water bottles, etc that were left in school before lockdown have been collected and put in a named bag in the child’s new cloakroom, so children will take these home with them on their first day back in school.
Music and French
Individual music and French tuition won’t be restarting yet as we will not be having visiting teachers in the school.