Newsletter 2021 Community, Support & Care Newsletter 2021 February Tees Valley Education 2021
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
COMMUNITY, SUPPORT & CARE NEWSLETTER 2021 COMMUNITY, SUPPORT & CARE NEWSLETTER 2021 FEBRUARY TEES VALLEY EDUCATION 2021 COMMUNITY, SUPPORT & CARE NEWSLETTER WELCOME Dear Parents, Carers and the community, Welcome to the first Teesside Philanthropic Discovery Special Academy Until the next newsletter Newsletter of 2021. Society. was awarded planning at Easter, please stay safe permission at the beginning and continue to follow As ever, I have great pleasure Additionally, staff have of the year. This is super government guidelines. in sharing with you all the worked incredibly hard with news for our children, their wonderful work our children a range of other partners families and our area – we Best wishes, have been doing both at to support greater access look forward to including school and at home whilst in to food hampers, breakfast pictures of the build as the current lockdown. opportunities, toys or it progresses but in the Christmas presents, as meanwhile we’ve included A huge well-done to well as other fund raising an artist’s impression to give everybody involved, including and support in order to buy you an idea of the finished you as parents and carers. I gloves to keep all of our academy. am also really proud to say children warm. By working that a wide range of local together, we are building Following the governments businesses and charity stronger communities as announcement of a hopeful Miss K Morley partnerships have supported well as supporting one return to school from the CEO our children in being able to another through these 8th March, as soon as Tees Valley Education access more digital devices, difficult times. we hear any more, your including iPads, laptops academy will write to you and routers. A big thank I am thrilled and really proud directly to communicate the you to all of them including to be able to announce that organisation around this. COMMUNITY, SUPPORT & CARE NEWSLETTER 2021 BRAMBLES FARM PRIMARY ACADEMY Blended Learning Offer In January, the academy were logging into this platform and using provided with a limited number of the laptop for the first time. government provided laptops which could be used to support online This online platform is in addition learning at home. These were to the work packs which were sent distributed to parents along with Wi-Fi home with all pupils. Pupils were dongles to support internet access. also given log-ins to access a range Santa Reindeer Run We have also recently been allocated of online resources which include some iPads and these are presently Spelling Shed, Nessie and Timestable being distributed to those children Rockstars. Well done everyone. Final total £ 3760.76 who are entitled to these government provided devices. We are really pleased with the level A HUGE THANK YOU to all of our of engagement and positivity of all wonderful families for sponsoring their Mr Mayle produced a video to support pupils with this blended learning offer. children in our Santa Reindeer Run. The parents and children with accessing Regular phone calls by staff to parents children all had the most amazing fun! Showbie as part of our Brambles have also supported with any barriers blended learning offer. In addition, to learning and the Pastoral Team They took great delight in chasing Santa staff supported parents via telephone remain on hand to offer any further around our playing fields dressed up in calls with any technical questions help to families which may be deemed their antlers and red noses. they may have had to support pupils necessary. I think we all know someone whose family has been directly affected by cancer and Teesside Hospice has struggled this year without their ability to fundraise. This huge donation will make such an enormous difference to their work -We have handed over a cheque to Teesside Hospice on your behalves for £3760.76. Many, thanks for all your support – this is a staggering amount! A special thank you to you all Thanks to Northumbrian Water and at Northumbrian Water for the offer of a van and a driver to travel supporting us and helping our to Newcastle for us, we were able to families this year. take advantage of a substantial ’Cash for Kids’ donation and take delivery On behalf of the pupils and families of of a vast amount of presents for our Brambles Farm and the surrounding children and families. This was such area, may I just take a moment an amazing gesture and had such a to send our utmost gratitude to positive impact on our families. Northumbrian Water in supporting us this year. We are an academy, What a huge difference this made situated in an area of significant to our children when they got up on challenges, which has been made Christmas morning. even more difficult due to effects of COVID19 and the pandemic this year. Many of our families were struggling at Christmas and we knew it would be a difficult time for them. TEES VALLEY EDUCATION COMMUNITY, SUPPORT & CARE NEWSLETTER 2021 COMMUNITY, SUPPORT & CARE NEWSLETTER 2021 BRAMBLES FARM PRIMARY ACADEMY Emotional Literacy A Huge Thank you to ‘The Salvation Army’, ‘Cause’ Support Assistant and ‘Cash for Kids’ this year… Support (ELSA) Each year these wonderful charities hold massive appeals to support families Hello - may I take a moment to in our area. They collect many donations of presents and bring food hampers introduce myself. My name is to the academy, so that we can distribute them to our most deserving families. Miss Walker and I have recently Given the effects of COVID19, and the resulting pandemic, a significant number joined the Brambles Pastoral of our families have been effected during this past year. On behalf of our Team. As part of my ELSA families and our community we would like to say a huge thank you to them all, (Emotional Literacy Support as without their amazing generosity, Christmas celebrations may have looked Assistant) role at Brambles, much different. I have continued holding my weekly sessions despite the recent lockdowns and effects of this pandemic. The Elsa A BIG THANK YOU children who are attending the academy come to me to Aims of Greggs Foundation: To build address their emotional needs stronger and healthier communities. by talking, using creative work Their purpose is to address the issues and also play to support them. I of poverty and inequality and to ensure have also provided work sheets food is at the heart of our communities for the children to take home and they support local organisations to make a real difference. and complete. I have supplied mindfulness colouring sheets, Here at Brambles Primary Academy, we are lucky enough to be supported by the calmness techniques to use at Greggs Foundation who enable us to provide a healthy daily breakfast and provide home and emotion and wellbeing breakfast bags to those children who are learning remotely at home. We normally activities. As well as taking my collect over 60 loaves of bread each week from our local Greggs store and shop sessions, I have used my time for cereal, spreads and condiments on a regular basis to supplement this offer. in the academy to check in on the other children attending At Christmas time we provided over 40 families with a food shopping parcel. This daily and also making telephone included a variety of tinned goods, perishable items and treats such as boxed calls home to those I feel need a biscuits and selection boxes for the children and their families. simple ‘Hello, how you doing?’ Greggs also allow us to apply to their ‘COVID19 Funding’ which so far has provided as it is important for their a number of families with a range of white goods and furniture such as a new wellbeing to know that we are washing machine, a new cooker and two families were given beds which included still here for them. mattresses, protectors and pillows. One family also received £100 worth of food vouchers and two others were given £150 worth of clothing vouchers which I have also provided all teaching allowed them to purchase appropriate winter clothing and footwear at this difficult staff with a variety of mental time. health and wellbeing resources which they have been able to We continue to spread this support out across as many families as we can reach. access should the need arise. WWW.TEESVALLEYEDUCATION.CO.UK COMMUNITY, SUPPORT & CARE NEWSLETTER 2021 DISCOVERY SPECIAL ACADEMY Discovery mini bus We are very excited to announce that we now have our own brand-new Discovery mini bus. Our own mini bus means we can offer a wider range of visits for all of our pupils to provide them with many more experiences within our local communityWILTON and wider PRIMARY ACADEMY area. We are excitedly planning a range of cultural, sporting and outdoor visits for when Covid restrictions allow. All these opportunities support the development of communication skills, independence, life skills and confidence and we look forward to telling you all about where we go in the mini bus in future newsletters. Showbie To support remote learning and blended learning, we have been developing the use of Showbie. This is an online platform which can be used on a laptop or downloaded as an App on a tablet. Teachers set personalised work and activities for pupils who are learning at home, including adding videos and voice messages to support children to engage in their home learning and stay connected to school staff. This has proved to be very popular with children and families and it is great to see children continuing their learning with support from home and alongside feedback from their teachers.