News
Extending the School Day
Posted On: 14 April 2021
You may recall from my last Parentmail that I said the government had made some additional funding available to schools to support them with curriculum recovery and enabling children to ‘get back on-track’ towards age-related expectations. A great deal of research has been completed into finding out which strategies are amongst the most effective in supporting children to close gaps in their learning. Unsurprisingly, one of the most effective methods is to extend the school day and give young people more time in school!
Every child has been affected by the pandemic in some way or another and it is therefore very important to us that we make a universal offer to all children to provide them with the support they need to achieve the best they possibly can; rather than just targeting small groups of children. With this in mind, we shall be extending our school day by one hour per week for pupils in Years 1 through to 6, and will be doing our outdoor P.E. lesson during this extended time; this will give us some additional time in the classroom to focus on the development of children’s basic skills and key knowledge.
Our proposal is that:
- All children in Years 2, 3 and 5 will stay at school until 4.10 p.m. every Monday – starting from Monday 19th April and ending on Monday 12th July 2021. Year 2 children should be collected from the main school gate; Year 3 children from the KS2 gate, and Year 5 from the car park gate.
- All children in Years 1, 4 and 6 will stay at school until 4.10 p.m. every Wednesday – starting from Wednesday 21st April and ending on Wednesday 14th July 2021. Year 1 children should be collected from the main school gate; Year 4 children from the KS2 gate, and Year 6 from the car park gate (unless of course Year 6 pupils have your permission to go home independently).
For the children, these sessions will feel like an after school club and it is certainly the only chance they will get to attend an extra-curricular club this academic year. We strongly urge parents to take up this offer, so that their child can fully benefit from all aspects of the extended school proposal. However, we do understand that for some of you – due to work commitments, child-minding arrangements, collection of siblings from other schools, etc. - it may be difficult. If, for logistical reasons, your child will not be able to stay for their extended school session please let their class teacher know in writing via the Home-School book. Whilst we cannot insist that the children attend, we hope that you will make every effort to support this enrichment opportunity.
Please provide your child with an additional drink that they can take outside with them should they need it during the outdoor session assigned to them either Monday or Wednesday: thank you.
For children in the Reception classes (Miss Sumner’s Class and Mrs Stacey/Mrs Sturton’s class) we will be extending the school day to 3.25 p.m. every day starting from Monday 19th April. The teachers have found that the afternoon session is incredibly short, once the children have settled back after lunch, and a daily extension will be far more beneficial than one hour per week to our youngest learners, who will thereby benefit from more time every day to strengthen their reading, writing and numeracy skills.
We very much hope you will support these proposals.
Kind regards,
Stacey Ward.
Head Teacher
