Well we are on day two and so far we are averaging 10-12 children attending school for childcare. All of these children are from key worker families. Our children are having a great time. We begin the day with Breakfast Club at 8am til 9am where Mrs Porter provides breakfast and the usual games, activities and cartoons. We are working closely with ScotMid Co-op to ensure all children continue to receive a healthy breakfast. The Co-op are providing food and vouchers so that the school can continue to ensure this high quality provision. We are also grateful to Stanhope paper shop who continue to supply our milk for Breakfast Club and use in the school kitchen for lunches.
At 9am our teaching staff (who are on a rota) take over childcare and begin the day with Joe Wicks on-line PE lesson. One silver lining of this crisis that the adults in school are getting fitter!!
On Monday, the children took part in a wide range of activities including mindfulness, yoga, outdoor games, board games and watched a movie.
Today our children have played indoor board games and completed jigsaw puzzles. They have had some screen time using the ipads and laptops and then played kick rounders outside before lunch. This afternoon they are making cupcakes and in fact one key workers came to collect their child and he didn’t want to leave as he was enjoying the activity so much!
We continue to provide a cooked school meal for any child in childcare and cold packed lunches for any child entitled to Free School Meals in the Dale. So far the take up of our cold packed lunches has been limited to a few each day but we anticipate that this will increase over time and that we may need to consider the implementation of the government voucher scheme. We are currently awaiting further guidance on how this voucher scheme will work and will keep you posted when we know more.
In the meantime, thank you to everyone who has sent us messages of support and thanks for the hard-work and dedication of our team. One example of the sort of messages we are getting is shown below:
“Without the school staying open and the amazing dedication of the staff I would not be able to continue working and don’t really know where I’d be! So I wanted to say a massive thank you to you!” (Key Worker Parent of Year 1 child)
Please share your ideas and keep us up to date with how you are entertaining your children by sending photos and messages to stanhopebarrington@durhamlearning.net
Hoping you and your families are safe and well.
Yours sincerely
Mr S Myers
Head Teacher
