As expected, we had confirmation late yesterday that schools will be closed for most children until February half-term and we are to move to remote learning. I don't think any of us can argue with the fact that the country now needs a strict lockdown, but it leaves all of you families in such a difficult predicament around educating your children and we will help and support as much as we can with a variety of remote teaching.
I know many of you are disappointed that after only 1 day of the term, we have to close our doors to the vast majority. Updated guidance has come out today which is very clear that we can only offer school places to children of critical workers and those classified as vulnerable. You will find the guidance and definitions here:
It is very important that your children can access all the resources for online learning, so if you need to borrow a laptop, headphones or need free data via a 4G sim or wireless router, please let us know. It is very hard for the children to learn anything for half a term from written worksheets and we really do want the children to have access to all the online learning and contact with their friends and teachers.
You should have all received your Teams logins via SeeSaw, so please try and login tomorrow to check it's working - if not let us know and we'll help. Once it's all up and running, the staff will be running some daily sessions via Teams in addition to the work on SeeSaw.
Tomorrow we will be celebrating a liturgy for the Feast of the Epiphany at 2pm and the children can all watch using their Teams account – teachers will post the link on SeeSaw.
Finally, we all know how stressful this time can be for all families, so if there is anything we can help or support with, you can contact us on the school number, by email (support@st-patricks.southampton.sch.uk or call/ text Mrs Mullin on 07712 097633.
Best wishes,
Michael Lobo