Headlines By James Saunders 15th January 2021
6 There is hope My theme this week is hope. After one full week of remote learning I am hopeful that our learners will make the progress they so richly deserve. I am hopeful that we will be able to do better for them this time round. Our teachers have worked their socks off this week to up our online offer. I have even done some online lessons myself - and loved them once I got over the technical challenges. What I can confirm is that a lot goes into preparing and delivering remote lessons and it is most definitely worth it. Teachers have commented on how lovely it has been to see the smiling faces of their classes and to hear their voices. Learners have told me they are really enjoying this format of learning. And parents have passed on their thanks to our staff for what they have been doing this week. One week in and I am hopeful that we will maintain the excellent progress our learners made in the first term over this lockdown. There may be a few more teething problems but things are most certainly heading in the right direction. However, there is another hope in the air and that is the national rollout of vaccinations. I am sure that, like me, you are constantly hearing about people who have been affected by COVID - it is getting closer to us all the time and more and more people are becoming personally affected. Everyday I learn about someone connected to our community who has experienced the many difficulties that COVID brings. These range from economic ones, to mental health ones, to the ultimate pain of losing a loved one. Right now with so much loss around us it really is important that we provide hope for each other - I can’t see anyone else doing that for us right now.
I would like to ask you all to help me in raising hope across our whole community. Let’s share the hope that comes with the rollout of vaccinations. Every time you hear of someone connected to our community that receives a vaccination it is one step closer to the end of the pandemic. Let’s celebrate this together and shout it from the rooftops. We are so used to seeing fear inducing daily statistics it’s time we had some more positive stats to counterbalance that. This is a plea for you to let me know when you hear of someone connected to our community who has received the vaccine - it could be a friend, a relative, or a key health worker. Every one of them will spur us on to the end. They will be our coach, our motivator and our collective bringer of hope. Just this week I know of several people within our community that have received the vaccine. Next week we are supporting the community minibus to ferry local residents to the clinic next to receive theirs too. Please keep this hope alive by letting me know every time you hear of a vaccination and I will raise the profile every week so that we can together cling on to this hope. Each week I shall share the good news with you that more and more people are becoming vaccinated. I will kick things off this week with a six. Six people have shared with me this week how the vaccine will benefit them. How many have you heard about? Email me directly, or better still let everyone know on our Facebook page. I shall keep a count each week via these headlines. I wish you a safe weekend. We will get through it together James Saunders Headteacher
Guidance and Expectations for ‘Live’ Lessons It is expected that for every subject session, each teacher should be ‘live’ for the first 5-15 mins so that they can check all learners are present and a register will take place. t the start of each learning session learners need to access Google Classroom through their iPads. In order to ensure successful access to the Google Meet they must ensure that; 1. They are signed into Gmail on the device 2. They are signed into google classroom 3. They must be signed in to Gmail in SAFARI with their Honywood School email account. To test this go to https://mail.google.com and their Honywood School email account should open. If a personal account opens, please sign out and sign in to their Honywood email account.
At the time that the session is due to start they need to click on the camera icon at the top of the Google Classroom page in the subject/class page they are timetabled to have. Learners should join the session a couple of minutes before it is due to start. If they join too early, before the teacher has opened the meeting, they will be shown a message stating “You can’t create a meeting yourself.” They should press the “Reload” button periodically until they are admitted to the meeting. Please note: this is not a problem, it just shows that the teacher has not yet opened the meeting for learners to join. The image they need to click on is
Direction will then be given as to how the session is to be conducted. This could be a ‘live’ teacher led session for the duration. It could be that staff have pre recorded using voiceover functions or presentations that learners can work through at their own pace. It could be that instructions are given and learning support materials available in google classroom. 1 x LS5 session will take place each week with learning groups commencing at 2.30pm provisionally following the assembly rota plan (C7 on Mon, C8 on Tues, C9 on Weds, C10 on Thurs and C11 on Fri) although this may vary slightly for some learning groups. Learning Groups Leaders will advise learners of the day and time. For safeguarding reasons school jumpers are to be worn and must be visible. Any poor behaviour could lead to the removal of learners from the session. Should a teacher need to remove a learner this will be followed up with families via Cohort or Senior Leaders. Any technical difficulties with online learning please email helpdesk@honywoodschool.com. Ensuring your child's iPad device is updated regularly, will ensure technical issues are greatly reduced. Illness / absence from either virtual or physical school should be reported in the usual way via email to attendance@honywoodschool.com Should learners require new exercise books these are available form school and can be collected from the main hall between 9am - 3pm Monday to Friday. Books handed in by learners to teaching staff over the Christmas period are also available for collection from this space from Monday 18th January.
Mr Hall has sent a message to C11 today. If you would like to see his message, check out our Facebook/Instagram page or follow the Youtube link: https://youtu.be/DSEVNTXgdTE?list=PLlSzxQyrZvDxz6uLMCREJf6OdKfpZHcf