alisonmcdonough

A moment of hope….

18th March 2020 By alisonmcdonough

In the current situation enveloping the world, it remains so important to us to provide little bits of sunshine and hope for our pupils, staff and families.

Miss Wilkinson, our Year 2 teacher, has had the upset of her upcoming wedding celebrations turned on its head. Instead of early April, she managed to pull together a wedding, with a few guests set to take place tomorrow (19th March) before her church closes. We decided to cheer her up with a little surprise from the children who decorated the yard and presented her with balloons and a commemorative gift. Year 2 provided a guard of honour and clapped her out to Starship’s ‘Nothing’s Gonna Stop Us Now’

We look forward to welcoming Mrs Newham back to class very soon.

CORONAVIRUS GUIDANCE

13th March 2020 By alisonmcdonough

UPDATED 20th March 2020 at 8.30AM

THE SCHOOL WILL CLOSE FOR EDUCATION PURPOSES AFTER FRIDAY 20TH MARCH

SATS TESTS IN YEAR 6 HAVE BEEN CANCELLED FOR THIS YEAR

I can now give you information about who we are allowed to have in school and the conditions around that as set out by the government. PLEASE CONTACT SCHOOL URGENTLY VIA PHONE OR MY EMAIL a.mcdonough101@durhamlearning.net if you think at any point in this crisis you could require childcare. It would be helpful for us to know anyone who works in any of these sectors now so we can forward plan potential provision

GOV.UK statement states:

If it is at all possible for children to be at home then they should be
If a child needs specialist support, is vulnerable or has a parent who is a critical worker, then educational provision will be made for them
Parents should not rely on those in the stringent social distancing category for childcare such as grandparents, friends or family with underlying conditions.
Parents should do everything they can to ensure children are not mixing socially in a way which can continue the spread of the virus. The should observe the same social distancing rules as adults.

If your work is critical to the COVID-19 response, or you work in one of the critical sectors listed below, and you cannot keep your child safe at home then your children will be prioritised for education provision:

Health and social care

includes but not limited to: doctors, nurses, midwives, paramedics, social workers, care workers, other frontline health and social care staff including volunteer, support staff required to maintain the health and social care sector and those working in the supply chain to health and social care including producers and distributors of medicines and medical ppe.

Education and childcare

includes nursery and teaching staff, social workers and specialist education professionals

Key Public Services

includes those running the justice system, religious staff, charities ad workers delivering key frontline services, those responsible for the management of the deceased and journalists and broadcasters who are providing public service broadcasting

Local and National government

Food and necessary goods

includes those involved in food production, processing, distribution, sale and delivery as well as those essential to the provision of other key goods

Public safety and national security

includes police and support staff, MoD officials, armed forces personnel, fire and rescue services, border security, national crime agency staff

Transport

includes those who keep air, water, road and rail passenger and freight transport modes operating and those working on transport systems

Utilities, communication and financial services

includes staff needed for essential financial services provision (banks, building societies, financial market) oil, gas, electricity and water sectors, IT and data infrastructure, civil nuclear, chemical and telecommunications workers (field engineering, call centre staff, 999 and 111, postal services and delivery, payments providers and waste disposal sectors

KEEP BEING MINDFUL OF THE SYMPTOMS AND FOLLOW GOVERNMENT GUIDANCE ON SOCIAL DISTANCING AND ISOLATION

a) a fever (37.8) or a new ‘continuous’ cough;

b) anyone in their household showing symptoms (raised temperature 37.8 or a new continuous cough) the ENTIRE HOUSEHOLD should be isolated for 14 days.

Communication with school during this time is going to be crucial and there are several ways to keep in touch with us, depending on your enquiry.

The school website- (this post will continue to be updated and class pages)
via class dojo which all parents will have a login for by the weekend- this will be where children access future learning
my direct work email- a.mcdonough101@durhamlearning.net
the school telephone number- 0191 5843805 (messages will be picked up regularly when we have access to the building)
teachers2parents text messaging system

There may well be potential going forward to allow time-slots for parents to collect printed work packs from school but because of how uncertain the future of this situation is, it is crucial that you remain in communication with us to find out about arrangements.

Please do not contact any of the staff through any personal means such as messenger or social media.

This is an unprecedented time, and I am really grateful for your patience and cooperation. We can’t wait to get back to normal teaching and learning!

We will keep you updated via this post and text messages if, and when, things change.

You can also follow the links below for more guidance:

https://www.gov.uk/government/topical-events/coronavirus-covid-19-uk-government-response

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/guidance-to-educational-settings-about-covid-19/guidance-to-educational-settings-about-covid-19

Durham Constabulary visit Y3/4

13th March 2020 By alisonmcdonough

PCSO’s Gilhooley and Islam visited y3 and 4 recently to talk about anti-social behaviour. The children were excellent at discussing the impact that these types of behaviours can have on the community, particularly older residents.

They discussed knocking on doors, riding quad-bikes illegally, hanging around in large groups, vandalism and arson, looking at the potential criminal damage that can be caused in each case.

Thank you to our local police community support officers for your continuing visits to our school.

World Book Day fun

5th March 2020 By alisonmcdonough

We love to celebrate books and reading in any way we can. World Book Day can be a costly occasion though so we challenged children to think outside the box and try to take part without spending any money. We were so proud of the effort the children made to wear something old, swap with a friend or to make their own props such as a medicine bottle and spoon for ‘George’s Marvellous Medicine’.

This year, we took the gift of reading and shared it with others as we visited Springfield Lodge to read traditional tales with the residents. They loved reminiscing about stories such as ‘The Gingerbread Man’ and ‘Goldilocks’.

Cheerleading Champions!

15th February 2020 By alisonmcdonough

We are always thrilled to hear about the achievements of our pupils outside of school. On the back of our gymnastics club in school, several girls went on to attend cheerleading classes at Durham City Gymnastics Club. Six West Rainton girls were recently part of the cheer squad who came out as regional champions at a tournament held in Newcastle. They were thrilled to tell us all about it in assembly.

Keep up the great work, girls!

Inter-generational technology

15th February 2020 By alisonmcdonough

We were thrilled to be asked to help our friends at Springfield Lodge with getting to grips with their new ipads. The staff want the residents to create their own selfie board but they needed some technological experts to teach them how. Pupils from Y3/4 not only patiently talked each resident through the use of the ipad camera, they also talked to them about the risks of posting images online and how we can better protect our privacy. The results were fantastic!

Tech lessons at Springfield

Valentine’s Disco

15th February 2020 By alisonmcdonough

Our spring term disco is always a fun one. Coming immediately after our dance festival, we spend time having each class teaching everyone in the school their routines. This way, when the tracks are played on the ipod at breaktimes outside, everyone can join in with the fun!

Thank you to our dedicated PTA for providing such lovely events for our children.

Intra-School Dance Festival

15th February 2020 By alisonmcdonough

Spring term brings about our unit of dance in PE. This unit, for the past six years, has ended with a beautiful display of our work in a dance festival for parents and family members to come and watch.

This year, we had over 120 people in our audience as they saw all classes from nursery to Y6 demonstrate the progression expected in dance over the years.

This year, we also added in commemorative certificates for all classes, plus some merit awards for stand-out achievements:

Best Costumes- Reception (African tribal dance- Shakseti)

Most expressive performance- Year 1 (A pirate you shall be!)

Most original routine- Y4/5 (Old Town Road- Wild West/hip hop!)

Safer Internet Day 2020

15th February 2020 By alisonmcdonough

Joining with the whole of the UK on safer internet day to spread messages about our online behaviours, really enhances our regular e-safety teaching and learning throughout the entire year.

This year, we though about our online identities; what is safe to post about ourselves and what information we should keep private. We discussed how having a different online profile can help to keep us safer but that it is not a license to behave in a way that could hurt others. We also discussed the risks this may pose if adults can create profiles that are not true to their identity.

Our children all created a bunting flag about their individual online profiles which we’ve put on display to celebrate our uniqueness and differences.

Our annual curling championships

15th February 2020 By alisonmcdonough

It’s an event hotly anticipated in the PE calendar here at West Rainton; the annual curling tournament held in spring term.

This year, there is the added incentive of each winning pair going into a ‘champion of champions’ event, to be held at Springfield Lodge, where we will be competing against the residents!