St Mary's Catholic Primary Schools Trust

16^th July 2020

Dear St Mary’s Families,

 We have come to the end of the academic year and what a year it has been! Who would have thought when we were making plans last September for the academic year ahead that there would be so much disruption, sadness and fear?  Many in our St Mary’s community have lost loved ones, many have had the worries that come with an unstable job market and for us all, the fear of this horrible virus that has lurked amongst us. In spite of this however you have managed to support your children so well with their learning, an amazing achievement.

Our dear children have missed so many of the things they look forward to every year; termly discos, school journey, productions, trips out, graduations, proms. They have however shown so much resilience and I am very proud of them all.

You will by now have received information about your children’s return to school in September. We have planned very carefully to make sure we can get all our children back learning whilst also keeping them safe.  

We will still continue with staggered starts and ends to the day and the children will continue to work in year group bubbles. The way we teach and mark children’s work will have to change and there will be certain activities that are dear to us all such as collective worship and singing that we will not be able to share as the pandemic continues.

Over the holidays we will be adapting the classrooms at both schools so that we can safely house classes of 30. We have purchase new single tables for all the children and we will be adapting the outdoor areas so that breaktimes can take place safely.

At the Infant School we will be installing a new exit gate in the Year 1 and 2 playground so that we can continue to run the one way system and we will have split lunchtimes so that children will have room to play at playtimes.

In Year’s 1,2,3,4,5 and 6 children will not share resources and will be given their own labelled pencil cases with everything they might need. For Nursery and Reception, all soft toys have been removed and all other resources will be sanitised every day.

Although staff will not be posting daily lessons on our Fronter site I will continue to post weekly assemblies and will upload any interesting learning that I think the children might enjoy so please do keep taking a look now and again.

Thank you for all your care and support this year. I wish you all a safe summer and look forward to seeing you all back with us in September.

May God bless you all.

Miss O’Callaghan

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