Schools Admitting More Pupils Post Reply

[Mmatz]

Mmatz wrote:
The Roche School will have all year groups back as off next week.
I am also a parent at the Roche School and totally agree with the parent above - their managing
of online classes and now return to school for all year groups for at least two weeks before summer holidays is really well done.

[goalie]

Honeywell School is bringing all children back for 2 out of the remaining 4 weeks of school - 1 week on, 1 week off. Nursery is unchanged, Reception is going from full time to half time and Y6 remains full time but finishes a couple of weeks early. 

[curly]

Belleville are falling behind other schools, by not considering all years going back in some form and parents are tearing their hair out.

They are letting Reception go back part time, Yr 1 and Yr6 full time. They are not even considering reducing those years to part time to enable other years to go back. 

Whereas other schools are being flexible and putting their children's learning as a priority, Belleville are not giving some children the chance to learn and will fall behind, especially Yr 5 who have an important year coming up. The children are going to be at a disadvantage when they start to apply for secondary schools as they would not have had the same education as  Yr 5's in other schools. 

Parents are not impressed

[Tigger]

Belleville are acting appallingly, plain and simple. What started as a wonderful community school has now turned into a monster Ark academy with scant regard for parents wishes and instead focussing on cramming as many children as they can into schools that were never designed for that many classes or pupils. The teachers are generally brilliant, but increasingly frustrated by the actions of the heads and governors.

In the latest saga (see above) they have completely dug their heels in and are refusing to alter their stance, despite pressure from parents and every other school acting differently.

Let’s see how you fare when the parents refuse to fund the PTA shall we...???

[KatherineHepburn]

Tigger, Belleville is not an Ark school.
It is a part of the Q1E trust.

I have a child in Year 6 and also 2 in Year 3 and I have been very happy with the home learning and also the very safely managed return to school for Year 6.

I am self-employed and obviously struggling to work with twins at home but I totally understand where the school is coming from. The information given to them and to ALL schools from government was NOT to do a rota system. Also, we have many children and parents who are still in full isolation so the whole situation is far more nuanced than 'well that private or state school is allowing kids in for 2 weeks, why can't mine!?'.

I think that the recent letters we have received from the school governors and the Head Team have been very clear indeed. They miss the kids, the kids miss them but they are following the current government guidelines... however shoddy and unclear they may be.

Year 6 had to be a priority due to secondary transfer and moving kids in and out of other years would possibly be hugely disruptive and upsetting to those children. Also, Belleville has worked so hard to offer as many places as possible to local children by going to 5 form entry in many years, it is a huge school but it grew to accommodate as many children as possible while still maintaining its excellent standards. Keeping to class bubbles of 15 with 2 teachers means that there is actually no more space available or teachers free to take back more years - however frustrating parents are finding that.

I hate seeing such a good school getting a drubbing online because of a situation out of their control. It really isn't fair.

[nvalleymum]

Things like that come up here because :
- Belleville/Q1e trust has been slower than other local schools to communicate plans,
- Slower to take year 6/reception and year 1 children back. Nursery children have only come back on Monday.
- Belleville not taking the year 2/3/4 and 5 back, which most other local schools have found ways of doing by using rota systems. (such rota systems though being used at Nursery level, with the bubbles sharing the same set of teachers, but somehow not applied to year 2/3/4 or 5, which the guidelines never forbid for those years, plus they are only "guidelines" ultimately.

All the above comes on top of a Home Learning program with low level of interaction, no marking, little constructive feedback to support progress and motivate children (and families) nor any live lessons are provided.
In addition, the material, at least for year 4 and 5 have often got typos, missing pages/broken links etc so the children cannot work independently as it is designed to be.

yes, the school provides a wealth of resources (some good and thoughtful) but as a whole it is not focused, so it is not useful and it takes a lot of will and time for any parents to extract what is needed and review it ahead of the children (and supplement).
it also requires an significant amount of printing which is neither ideal nor practical.

Any parents trying to also work or support multiple children at different primary levels, will find it hard, and many have simply checked out...
lots of kids are left to their own device with some lucky families hiring tutors, paying for various online subscriptions, apps etc

lots of smaller and less resourced schools have come up with better and more interactive solutions, or are taking children back in school.
Parents are worried and concerned about the other side of the summer, mental health and loss in education.

Generally, the provision does not feel aligned with the wonders that the school has offered for many years, the size and capacity of the huge well resourced and staffed school/trust, hence the disappointment, frustration and the feeling of being let down.

[Astolat]

Another disappointed Belleville parent here.

I just don’t think the will was there. Or else the size of the trust just got in the way of being flexible and adaptive.

To send a letter stating in one paragraph that they have stuck to the guidelines and aren’t deviating from them and in the next that they have gone against the guidelines in teacher ratios is almost funny. So the only ways they want to be flexible make it harder to take pupils back.

I think the government’s handling of this has been a shambles of poor communication (umpteen different sets of guidelines), lack of clarity and total failure to engage the people who need to be up for delivering this eg teachers and their union representatives. They’ve got everyone’s backs up by working like this but I do feel as though Belleville’s reaction hasn’t been to look for solutions but to dig in against the idea of opening.

Hopefully September is different.

[Sagi]

I am a Belleville parent and I am actually happy with the school's responsible and cautious approach in taking children back. It may not be to everyone's taste but I do feel that they are putting the safety of the children first and that they are doing things by the book.

Yes, the home learning has the occasional typo or broken link, but overall it is well-structured and keeps my child engaged. Whenever I found a broken link, I flagged it with the school and it was fixed very quickly. My child submits work to his teacher on a daily basis and she has always provided feedback. Maybe KS2 kids can cope better than the little ones?

I do agree with the poster who said that Y5 should have been taken back before Y6 as they'll sit secondary school exams next year, but that decision was made by the government, not the schools.

Let's see what happens in September...

[HappyWalrus]

Ravenstone is bringing all years back for at least some of the week. This isn’t happening at a lot of other state primaries in the area.

The difference seems to be that other schools lcommitted to bringing back reception/yr1/yr6 for the full week. When those years were split into bubbles, that used up all their classrooms. So now there’s no room for the other kids, who will be out of school from March til September and often getting fairly limited remote teaching.

Whereas Ravenstone opted to bring back all years for 2/days week and combine that with a really good distance learning offer. Google classroom, video lessons every day, one on one sessions with teachers via zoom... the result is that all the kids at Ravenstone get to maintain a good link with the school and - hopefully - will have an easier time getting back to it in September. (Alternatively, if virus means no return to normal in September, the Ravenstone approach means the school can still offer teaching to all kids. In that scenario, I wonder if all schools would move to use the Ravenstone approach.)

[Starr]

I just want to say I'm very impressed hearing about Ravenstone school. Amazing initiative and commitment to the children continuing their education.
Hopefully the other state primary schools will follow suit and adapt quickly during these uncertain times. Many children will have not been able to be home schooled properly ( including mine) due to circumstances or type of child, mine is just very reluctant!

[Angieb]

My children are in Year 4 at Swaffield school, and they will be going back on July 20th. All the years who are in school now (nursery, reception, Y1 & Y6) will finish a few days early, there’ll be a deep clean and then all the remaining years will have 2 full weeks back at school. The head and teachers have been amazing throughout all of this, so supportive and caring and we are all delighted they are accommodating the other years and therefore having a shorter break themselves.

[lemonzest]

Pretty impressed with Swaffield's approach, finding a way to welcome back all years before the summer holidays. It's certainly been a stressful time for children, parents/carers and teachers alike, but this hopefully provides a bit of normality before the long summer break and whatever the coming months hold.

[Starr]

What's clear is there will be children who will be behind others due to this virus and depending on the school and type of child. The schools really need to come up with plan. We would have been happier if there was at least an assembly from the headteacher once a week or so. My son has zoned out from school and I've lost the will for a few weeks now to force him to learn what they have given.

[SashaG]

Another disappointed Belleville parent.

Tigger, I completely agree.

Katherine, it should not matter whether it is an Ark school or a Q1Trust school. The substance is the same - the school has been unable and unwilling to deliver homelearning during the lockdown and returning to school after it.

All schools got the same unsupported by science guidelines. However, the application of these much criticised guildelines is at the discretion of the school. After all, they are just guidelines - not regulations. Whilst other schools came up with various initiatives to accomodate all children at schools, Belleville came up with the initiative to have 2 teachers in a classroom with 15 children to exclude as many children as only possible under the guidelines - very creative.

Home learning was virtually non-existant from March till June. The school is silent about the plan for the summer, though they repeat like mantra that the exam in y6 will be in December. So it will for the rest of the schools.

It's painful to watch all other children around us going to schools whilst ours are generously getting 2 zoom lessons in comprehensive reading before they break up for the holiday and a patronising request to dress up for these lessons and silence the siblings and pets. Meow-meow, woof-woof.

[johnebe]

Belleville school seems to be the only school in the heart of Nappy Valley which did not re-open for all year groups.

They do not seem to have any plan for year 5 in place and they do not respond to the parents' letters. The teachers do not answer any questions saying that it is for the Trust. John Grove, ex head who is in charge of the Trust now, is in hiding. Two head teachers write and sign the letters about the school's plans for home-learning, which is being organised now, following other schools' re-openings. The question is whether they are intending to implement these plans in September rather than re-open the school for all children.

Trust in the Trust is trashed.