Patcham Infant School & Nursery Class

To Our Wonderful Patcham Infant and Nursery Class Community

I hope you, your family, loved ones, friends and neighbours are all keeping well and have managed to have time to relax and enjoy this rather different Easter break.

The weather over the Easter weekend was glorious and certainly helped us feel like it was a holiday albeit in a more restricted manner, with all plans postponed as a result of lock down. It was reassuring to see that the Brighton community took the social distancing message seriously and stayed at home to ensure we look after each other as well as our wonderful critical workers. Our school remained open over the last two weeks for critical worker families and we made sure that those children who attended had a fun experience. Huge thanks to all staff who were on site or working from home during this period.

Yesterday was National Offer Day for our Year 2 families and for those families joining us in Reception next academic year. Doing this remotely is another new experience that we will be embarking on to ensure that the transitions are as smooth as possible.

As per school policy we will not be mixing the Year 2 classes so those attending Patcham Junior School will be joining the school in the class they are already in. For those children attending a different school we will work closely with families to support the transition. For children who may need an enhanced transition we will be working closely with families and the Junior School to provide the best possible start into Year 3 and beyond. If anyone has any concerns around this matter please do contact me via the school email and I will have a telephone call with you next week. Once we have received the returned admission forms for families new to Reception we will start to make contact with pre-school providers to gather information and begin creating classes. We would really love to meet all new families in the summer term to welcome them into the Patcham ‘fold’, but this will be subject to future COVID developments. If this isn’t possible we will build on our newly found technical skills to welcome everyone remotely.

My goodness…. once we get through this we will all have developed newfound resilience for tackling challenges we are faced with! As a school we pride ourselves on instilling a growth mindset and effective learning behaviours in children to prepare them for their lives ahead. Little did we know that we would all be putting our Incy, Give and Take, Resourceful Rat and Reflective Raven skills into practise so intensely and immediately – albeit from a distance! Being someone who relishes face to face communication I am currently in my Stretch Zone, communicating electronically and still desperately missing human contact!

As a family our routine has relaxed over the last couple of weeks. I know the Xbox controllers have had a lot of use and I think it was only my wife, Jan, who was up with Joe Wicks every morning. Still, it was great to have some downtime together, I know my children needed a break.

So, next week sees the start of the new term with new remote learning experiences for the children. Can I suggest that if, like me, routines changed over the last two weeks you set yourself new challenges and daily routines. For us we found home-learning activities more successful in the mornings (after Mr Wicks which the whole family will enjoy once more) with some daily exercise outdoors, after lunch and before the use of electronics and social media communication.

Of course, I know you will all find routines that best suit your household and please remember there is no wrong way to do it. Just keep looking after each other, keep yourselves emotionally happy, practice calmness and transmit hope. I do hope you enjoyed the musical clip from our wonderful support staff last week. I know they had a lot of fun making it. We all loved watching Bumblebee Class as they performed their own gorgeous rendition too – not a dry eye in the house!

Here is wishing you all a lovely weekend.

With love

Chris Taylor

#StayHomeSaveLives #WereAllInThisTogether