2020-2021

Home Learning

Blythdale – Bubble 3

Dear Parents / Carers,

As you are aware, The Dales School is having to limit the number of children attending school each day to ensure the necessary health and safety measures are in place for both children and staff to keep everyone as safe as possible. As a result, we are supporting our children at home by providing access to high quality virtual teaching, support and learning.

This will take place on the following platforms:

• Google classroom
• Tapestry
• Classroom 360
• Education City
• Oxford Owl
• Posted resources (at families request)

There are six key elements of our home learning offer:

1. Home learning packs
2. Personalised targets linked to EHCP, basic skills and life skills
3. Activity suggestions
4. Whole group and 1:1 face to face Google Classroom sessions
5. OT and SaLT resources and activities – where required.
6. Online learning sessions

Home learning will be used to support the transition between school and home and will encourage a healthy routine when the children are not in school. We will support this transition with visual resources and daily zones of regulation check-ins.

Virtual home learning:

Home learning days will begin at 9 o’clock where the children will be invited to join a whole class Google Classroom with a member of the Bubble 3 team. This session will last 15 – 20 minutes and will include a weather/story massage routine, zones of regulation check in and a makaton sign of the day, topic or themed discussion.

The children will then be invited to join various subject specific learning sessions throughout the day (a timetable outlining this is attached to this letter).

The day will end with a show and tell session with a member of the home learning team, during this children will be encouraged to talk about something they have learned/made or done that day. The Google Classroom call will end for the day with a ‘zones of regulation’ check in and a story or discussion time.

We ask that you ensure that an adult is in the same room as your child whilst they are on the call, this is to safeguard both staff and children.

Tapestry/ Google Classroom

The home learning team will also upload various ‘World Around us’’ activities which you can use at home. These will be updated regularly, and you will also be able to gain access to Education City and Oxford Owl through the login details which will be posted on Tapestry and Google Classroom.

Teachers have created life skills documents which include a range of targets that we aimed to work on with your children in school this half term. Teachers have added suggested activities to these targets for you to work on at home.

Tapestry can also be used as a way for you to communicate with staff at school and show us the lovely activities that your children have been doing at home.

If you require any further information, please do not hesitate to contact us at school on 01670 352556 or by emailing rachel.hepburn@thedales.northumberland.sch.uk  and your email will be forwarded to the relevant member of the home learning team. When emailing can you please give your child’s name, so we can direct you to the correct member of staff.

All children will need to be able to log in using their School360 pupil account to use the learning platforms. See the attached document. If you need any help with this please contact us.

Thank you for your continued support – we very much appreciate it at this very difficult time.

Timetable

A visual timetable copy of this is available on the below page to print for your child. If you need a copy printed off and sent to you, please inform your class team via Tapestry.

 Home Learning

Blythdale – Bubble 2

Dear Parents/Carers,

As you are aware, The Dales School is having to limit the number of children attending school each day to ensure the necessary health and safety measures are in place for both children and staff to keep everyone as safe as possible.

During this time we want to do everything we can to support you and your child at home with their learning journey. Our aim is to work closely with you to provide a personalised approach to home learning so that your child can make good progress in all areas of their development.

We recognise that every family’s situation is different and hope that you and your child are able to make good use of our offer.

• We will telephone you each week to discuss how we can support your child.
• We will provide a pack of resources to support your child with their learning including a visual timetable.
• We will share your child’s basic and life skills targets with suggestions of how they can be supported at home.
• We will provide you with a range of resources both online and in paper based forms to supplement our planned activities.
• We will provide three learning activities per day that cover a range of curriculum areas. These will be posted on Tapestry or included in your pack.
• We will arrange a live Zoom session twice weekly so that your child can see and communicate with their staff team and classmates.

Our timetable will stay the same each week so that the children know what to expect. You can access the activities at times that are suited to you throughout the day and set your child’s timetables up as you see best fit.

We hope that your child will have a positive experience of learning at home. Remember sometimes you just need to stop, go outside, watch TV or play a game. There are staff available at Blythdale to talk to if you have any concerns.

Many thanks for your continued support

Liz Sanderson and the Bubble 2 team

Home Learning

Blythdale – Bubble 1

Dear Parents/Carers,

As you are aware, The Dales School is having to limit the number of children attending school each day to ensure the necessary health and safety measures are in place for both children and staff, to keep everyone as safe as possible. As a result, we are offering our children at home the opportunity to access high quality virtual teaching and learning.

This will take place on the following platforms:

• Zoom/Google classroom
• Tapestry
• Posted resources (at families request)

There are six key elements of our home learning offer:

1. Home learning packs
2. Personalised targets linked to EHCP, basic skills and life skills
3. Activity suggestions
4. Whole group and 1:1 face to face zoom sessions
5. OT resources and activities
6. Online learning sessions

Home learning will be used to support the transition between school and home and will encourage a healthy routine when the children are not in school. We will support this transition with visual resources.

Virtual home learning:

Home learning days will begin with an upload of a Bucket Time session for your child onto Tapestry for them to watch. We understand the nature of the children’s needs means they would find it difficult to interact with or respond to live Zoom calls, therefore we have made a decision as a team to upload our content and sessions on Tapestry or via email for you to access as and when you feel your child is able.

There will be daily uploads of a topic themed activity which is specific for your child’s level of learning. If you complete this with your child please upload a photo so we can see!

The day will end with an upload of a story with a familiar member of staff. We believe it is important for the children to still be able to see and hear us in order to maintain the relationships they have made, and also to make the transition back into school smoother. To also support this, at 2pm every Friday each staff team will lead a class zoom call. This may be a story, an activity or a Rhyme Time.

We ask that you ensure that an adult is in the same room as your child whilst they are on the zoom call, this is to safeguard both staff and children.

Throughout the day extra videos will be added. These may be something which is aimed at your child, such as a short phonics session, or a video demonstration of how to use some of the resources that we have made available to you, such as our visuals and Now and Next boards.

If you watch or access a video or any content that we put on, we are asking if you could please click the ‘like’ button on Tapestry, so that we know that you have seen it and we can monitor activity and troubleshoot issues.

Teachers have created life skills documents which include a range of targets that we aimed to work on with your children in school this half term. Teachers have added suggested activities to these targets for you to work on at home. This will form the bulk of the work you do with your child, and we are happy to support this as much as we can with video demonstrations, supporting with visuals or sending things home. We are here for you- you can let us know exactly what you need to make your time at home with your child easier for them and for you. Just let us know what you need and we can make things, send items home or even just be at the end of the phone for a chat.

If you are still having difficulties accessing Tapestry then please let us know as soon as possible.

If you require any further information, please do not hesitate to contact us at school on 01670 352556 or by emailing sarah.harris@thedales.northumberland.sch.uk and your email will be forwarded to the relevant member of the home learning team.

Thank you for your continued support – we very much appreciate it at this very difficult time.

This week the children of 6B have been doing some lovely Christmas activities including putting together their Christmas hampers, and recording Christmas messages on the iPads to send home. The children have done some great Christmas crafts like making lollystick-Santas and hanging Christmas tree decorations, as well as printing and painting to make their own sheet of wrapping paper for a gift for someone at home. The children have also learned about the story of the nativity and created their very own stained glass style windows.

From all of the children and staff in 6B, all that’s left is to say we hope you have a wonderful Christmas and we’re looking forward to seeing the children back in the new year!

Class 5B have been celebrating Christmas this week. We made our Christmas Movie Night hampers ( we hope your family enjoy them), we had a disco in the snow in the garden and enjoyed a movie in the classroom.

We have also written some special letters to Santa and Santa delivered some presents to our classroom- it was very exciting! We finished our week by making Christingles to think about what Christmas is all about.

We wish you all a very merry Christmas.

What a wonderfully busy and creative start to the week! Class 2B have been reading ‘The Penguin and the Pinecone – A Friendship Story’ and learning about our emotions through the characters in the story. We especially liked it when Pinecone was cold ‘brrrrr’ and when Penguin and Pinecone were reunited at the end! 🙂 We have also been getting lovely and messy making salt dough tree decorations and Christmas cards.

This week 3B have been following the story of the Jolly Christmas Postman, they have loved being post people in our role play post office. Lot’s of fun and surprises with the Christmas buckets, including singing snow globes and snowballs.

We started the week off with a great visit to Plessey Woods. The children loved exploring and finding all the hidden artworks (and some not so hidden!). They’ve also learned about Stollen, a traditional fruit bread eaten in Germany around Christmas time and had a go at making their own. The children enjoyed their Christmas dinner on Thursday and have practiced their computing with the Spheros and the Kubo coding robots. Finishing off the story of Hansel and Gretel, the children have also done some writing to create fantastic ‘wanted’ posters about the witch from the story.