Latest News | Drapers Mills Primary Academy

Kent Test Update

Mon 25 May 2020

A message from KCC Education.

We understand that many of you with children in year 5 are very anxious to know what will happen about the Kent Test when the new school year starts in September. We are carefully considering what might be deliverable, depending on advice from central government as the pandemic runs its course and decisions are made about the easing of lockdown for children of primary school age.

Many factors could change between now and the end of term and this means that we are currently unable to tell you exactly how we will assess children for grammar school in the new academic year. We can confirm, however, that we will need some way to identify which children are eligible. Testing has the benefit of being available to the thousands of grammar school applicants we normally assess every year, however recently they have arrived in Kent and wherever they usually study, even if they are home educated, so it would be the most straightforward option if it is possible. Whatever is decided, we need to be confident that we can keep the risk to children and their teachers as low as possible, allowing grammar schools meet their legal obligations in a fair and transparent way, while allowing us to stay within the national timetable for coordinating school admissions. We appreciate that everyone of school age is missing classroom teaching, but it is fortunate that there are many excellent resources available through schools and education sites for children.

Familiarisation material for the Kent Test can also be found on our Kent Test page.

We will update the website for everyone’s benefit when we have received further guidance from the Department for Education and there is a clearer understanding of what arrangements may be possible. In the meantime, we would ask that parents monitor the Kent Test page for updates, rather than sending individual enquiries. We do understand that uncertainty is difficult, especially for children, but we are unable to confirm what arrangements will be in place until there is a clearer understanding of how children are likely to return to school in greater numbers.

UPDATE - School Reopening Plans

Wed 20 May 2020

Dear Parents and Carers,

Reopening of Drapers Mills Primary Academy

I hope you and your families remain safe and well.

Please be aware, below is our plan for the reopening of our school and this may change at short notice, due to updated Government advice. However, I felt important to share with you what we intend to do.

Arrangements for reopening of school.

Following advice from the Government, we are planning to partially reopen, for Nursery, Reception, Year 1 and Year 6 starting on Monday 8^th June.

In order to ensure the safety of your child and social distancing, we have decided to have a phased reopening. This means that we have divided our Nursery, Reception, Year 1 and Year 6 classes into 2 groups - a group A and a group B. Your child will be allocated a place in either group A or group B and a 2 - week cycle will operate as follows, with group A starting on Monday 8^th June.

Day Week 1	Group A	Group B
Monday	School	Home learning
Tuesday	School	Home learning
Wednesday AM	School	Home learning
Wednesday PM	Home learning for all - school closed for deep cleaning
Thursday	Home learning	School
Friday	Home learning	School
Day Week 2	Group A	Group B
Monday	Home learning	School
Tuesday	Home learning	School
Wednesday AM	Home learning	School
Wednesday PM	Home learning for all - school closed for deep cleaning
Thursday	School	Home learning
Friday	School	Home learning

The arrangements for vulnerable pupils and the children of Key workers will remain the same. They will form part of an additional group and will be able to access the school every day.

Each group will work in a set classroom and will not move to other rooms at any time. This includes adults.

When your child will be in school:

You will shortly be informed which cycle (Group A or Group B) you child will be in and when their starting date will be.

The classes will be split alphabetically into Group A or Group B. Please note that whilst your child will be in the same group as their siblings, unfortunately, as I am sure you can understand, we cannot make changes based on friendship groups or parental preference. You will be sent a message to confirm which group your child is in, but if you are unclear or do not receive an email, please email office@dmpa-tkat.org before school reopens.

Timings:

To avoid a congregation of parents, the window for dropping your children off each day has been extended from 8.30 until 9.15 and the collecting window will now be anytime between 2.30pm and 3.15pm. We ask that only one adult brings the children into school each day.

Anyone who does not arrive on time will need to drop off via the main office. We respectfully ask that everyone makes every effort to arrive during these time-slots. If you are late, please do not use the signing in systems – we will sign them in.

If you arrive after 3:15pm the children will wait on the playground with an adult from their group until a parent arrives. They can no longer be collected from the office.

Entry and Exit from the School Premises

We need parents to support us to ensure the safety of all children and staff, we, therefore, insist that you adhere to the following instructions for the start and end of the school day.

Routes:

To reduce congestion and to allow us to enforce social distancing at the start and end of each day, all five gates into the school will be used.

The double gates onto the field from College Road
The normal gates by the pedestrian crossing.
The gate by the school office.
The gates outside the Key Stage 2 hall.
The gates by the allotments by the KS2 playground.

Members of the staff will be at points on the routes to marshal parents and carers and avoid gatherings or bottlenecks. If you are not making every effort to remain 2 metres apart, you will be reminded by staff.

We are very conscious of the impact the current situation may have had on your child. The social isolation and anxiety related to COVID 19 is extremely significant and therefore we are ensuring that the staff team are equipped with supporting the children with their anxieties when they return.

On top of this, the school will be very different to the one they left in March. We will shortly be sending you a Guide that outlines our social distancing measures, this will mean that the children will not be able to freely socialise or even communicate with their classmates; they will not be able to interact in the same way with staff and generally will need to act in a way that is strange to them.

Please therefore use the CHILDREN'S GUIDE TO DRAPERS MILLS REOPENING document that we will also be shortly sending you, which explains to them what school will be like when they return. We would suggest that you go through a few things each day so as not to overwhelm them with all the changes.

I fully understand the anxiety that you may be feeling about sending your child back at this time. To support this, we are happy to receive phone calls on the first few days of returning if you want to check in regarding how your child is doing.

In order to reduce presence on the premises during the school day when we return, we ask that any communication is done via phone call or admin email.

Thank you for your continued support, it is much appreciated. I hope you understand that a great deal of effort has gone into planning for your child’s welcome return, but we always use the latest advice so things may need to change at short notice.

If you have any questions please contact the school via the email or phone number above.

Yours sincerely

Joe Manclark

Headteacher

UPDATE - Preparing for the partial reopening of schools after the 1st June

Mon 18 May 2020

Dear Parents and Carers,

Parent and Carer Questionnaire. (Nursery/Reception, Year 1 and Year 6 only)

You will be aware from my previous communications that we are preparing for the partial reopening of our school for Nursery, Reception, Year 1 and 6 children. In preparing to reopen, the safety of your child is paramount and we are following the latest Government guidance and scientific advice, which we will share with you closer to the date of reopening. Whilst we expect and hope that your child will return, to ensure that were are able to safely reopen our school, we need an indication of how many children are likely to attend.

The arrangements for vulnerable children and the children of key workers in all Year groups remain unchanged.

Please could you complete and return a very short survey by tomorrow (Tuesday) evening for your children. The survey can be found HERE.

Once again thank you for your co-operation and support during these challenging times.

Joe Manclark

Headteacher

Poetry Competition

Fri 15 May 2020 A. Evans

If you are feeling creative, then why not try entering this poetry competition. We would recommend that you send any entries directly to the competition and hurry because the closing date is 5th June 2020. The competition is designed for age 7 upwards.

Click on the link below which will take you to the website.

Poetry Competition

School Reopening Update

Thu 14 May 2020

Dear Parents / Carers

As I recently informed you, the Prime Minister announced that he intended for our school to reopen to Reception, Year 1 and Year 6 students after the 1st of June. When you heard that announcement, I am sure like us, your feelings were mixed. On the one hand pleased that we might be returning to normal, on the other anxious about whether your children would be safe and whether they might spread the infection. These fears have been highlighted in the press. We have taken the decision to delay sending out to parents and carers any detailed advice about when and how our school will reopen.

1st of June was given as the earliest date that schools will reopen, we will only reopen when we believe it is safe and we have had time to make the necessary preparations to the site and with our staff. I will give you at least one week's notice.

We are working on our plans for when school eventually reopens. There are many factors that we need to take into account; including how children arrive and leave school safely; what we need to do to ensure social distancing in school and any additional cleaning measures needed. Again I will let you know exactly what we are doing to make our school as safe as possible, at least one week before any pupils return.

I fully appreciate that you will be anxious about what is going to happen when our school reopens and you would like to know as soon as possible. We will only contact you when we are sure that the information we give ensures your child safety and based on the latest advice.

As a school, we have had to reevaluate what the future may look like and plan for the long-lasting impact of COVID-19. This will mean making adjustments to our curriculum and workforce to ensure we can continue to offer high-quality provision for our school community. I will share these with you as we prepare for school to reopen for all our children whenever that may be.

Thank you for taking the time to read through this letter. We know there will be many questions you would like to ask us and we will do our best to answer where we can, but please understand that this is a new and unique time for all of us and we would ask for your patience and understanding as we prepare for when our school eventually reopens.

Yours sincerely.

Joe Manclark

Headteacher

FREE E-Book library from Oxford Owl

Wed 13 May 2020

This is a FREE resource well worth looking at to ensure your child(ren) continue to read at their ability level during school closures.

You’ll need to register using an email address, but access to many texts are FREE.

Please contact your child's class teacher if you need to know what level (colour band) you need to download.

https://home.oxfordowl.co.uk/books/free-ebooks/

COVID-19 - Phased re-opening UPDATE

Tue 12 May 2020

Dear Parents

I hope you and your families, remain safe and well.

The Prime Minister's announcement about Schools reopening.

As I am sure you are aware, in his Sunday announcement the Prime Minister informed us of the possibility of our school partially reopening, initially, for Reception, Years 1 and 6 after the first of June. Yesterday, I received further guidance from the Government about how to prepare for this partial reopening and I am currently working closely with the Kemnal Academies Trust (TKAT) to prepare a detailed plan for how we will partially reopen at Drapers Mills Primary Academy.

Included in this will be information about how we plan to organise the school day to reduce the risk of infection in line with the scientific advice. Rest assured, the safety of your children and our staff will be our paramount concern. I will be sharing this with you in the near future.

This is a link to Information for parents and carers to help you prepare for the wider opening of nurseries, schools and colleges from 1 June: Guidance for parents and carers

Our School is open to vulnerable pupils and the children of key workers and still will continue do so, after the 1st June. As a reminder, the Government has defined key (or critical) workers. A list of those included can be found here: Key worker list .

Work will continue to be posted on the school’s website for those children that will not be attending school to complete remotely.

Take care and stay safe.

Joe Manclark

Headteacher

.

COVID - 19 Update

Mon 11 May 2020

To everyone within the Drapers Mills Primary community.

I, like many of you, have more questions than answers after last night's government announcement regarding the proposed re-opening of Primary Schools and the phased return of our children.

Please be assured, we will be looking in detail at any further communication from the Department of Education over the next couple of days, and will keep you all updated on the plans we put in place to ensure that the school can open safely and within the guidelines that have been set.

In the meantime, the school will remain closed to all pupils, with the exception of children of key workers and children identified as being part of 'vulnerable groups' who will continue to come in as normal.

I will be in touch again shortly.

Stay safe.

Joe Manclark

Headteacher

VE75 Celebration ideas

Mon 04 May 2020

Plans to mark the 75th anniversary of the end of the Second World War in Europe on Friday 8 May have changed due to coronavirus. But there are still lots of ways you can get involved and show support in marking the day.

The government has announced a revised VE Day events programme: https://www.gov.uk/…/her-majesty-the-queen-to-send-a-messag… which includes a national toast at 3pm and an address from Her Majesty The Queen at 9pm.

The Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport has developed a new website https://ve-vjday75.gov.uk/get-involved/ that includes ideas for homemade VE Day bunting, original recipes, games, and educational and creative activities for children.

The Royal British Legion is inviting people across the UK to join a 2-minute silence at 11am on Friday 8 May www.rbl.org.uk/veday75

Broadstairs & St. Peter's Town Council is planning a virtual celebration https://www.facebook.com/events/2706966472917787/ .

Age UK Thanet Ltd is asking people to nominate a veteran or an unknown hero by calling 01843 223881 and donating £8 for them to receive a meal.

If you are organising a stay at home party, please be responsible, maintain social distancing and be considerate towards your neighbours.

#VEDay75 #StayHomeSaveLives

COVID-19 Update for parents

Mon 04 May 2020

The Department for Education have update their guidance for parents.

The document entitled, "What parents and carers need to know about schools, colleges and other education settings during the coronavirus outbreak", can be found here.