Stanmore Post - 18 June 2021

Dear Parents/ Carers, 

As you will be aware the Government have delayed the ending of the Lockdown restrictions. This will have some impact on our end of year events. The most significant impact is that children have to remain in their bubbles. All other control measures will remain in place, including all visitors wearing face coverings on site and maintaining the one way system. 

  • Sports Day: This will be a children only event and will take place over 3 consecutive afternoons. Weather permitting, we will hold this in the week commencing 12th July. We will share photos on the website. 

  • Hawaiian Disco: The Friends of the School are working hard to ensure that this can go ahead within current Government Guidance and will update you of any revisions to their risk assessment.  Unfortunately, parents cannot gather on site to wait for children while the disco is on.  

  • Transition Days: Regrettably Kings have had to cancel the Yea r6 Induction Days and Information Evening. Instead they will be hosting a virtual information evening for parents on the Kings YouTube channel. In addition there will be an opportunity for the children to access short videos of introduction from the different departments alongside a virtual tour of the school.  In school we will provide opportunities for children to meet their new teachers with other children from their current bubble. We will leave the whole class transition days ‘Shuffle Up’ until the last week of term in anticipation of relaxation of the guidance on July 19th.   

  • Year 6 Production and Year R Talent Show: These will be made available to parents online.  

  • Leavers Service: This is planned for the 21st July. Please hold this date and we will make a decision about whether this can go ahead with an audience of 30 parents or carers, possibly outdoors, nearer the time.  

While I am as disappointed as you are not to be able to return to ‘normal’ events just yet, I am pleased that we are still able to provide a full enrichment curriculum for the children. The school events this term have all been planned so that they could be adapted rather than cancelled. The children are now used to working within their bubbles and continue to adapt and adjust well to the circumstances. Unfortunately it is Parents, Grandparents and Carers who are still missing out on the audience participation experience which I know you will have been looking forward to. 

We were able to hold Parents Evening this week and this included a mix of face to face and virtual appointments. Thank you to all Parents and Carers who attended. If you were unable to make your appointment and would like to talk through any concerns, please contact the school office to arrange a follow up telephone call with the teacher or with Mrs Taylor, Mrs Fenton or Mrs Atkins. 

Children throughout the school have already benefited from a wonderful Enterprise Day. Oak and Elm are now preparing presentations for their preferred charity and will vote on where the money should go. This week we were able to invite the Young Shakespeare Company into school where they gave an outstanding performance of ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream’ to a reduced capacity audience of children in Year 4, 5 and 6. They engaged all of the children and it was a pleasure to see their faces as they were drawn into the production. Watching a live performance after so long was very powerful and we have booked for a return visit next year.

Children in Catkins have held an excellent performance of their own, in a wonderful Talent Show produced as a superb video by Sean Pruen. This will be shared on Tapestry before being published on the website, with the permission of the year R parents. The Reading Festival can go ahead as planned.  

It seems that the new normal is still an unpredictable place to be. As a community we now have a proven track record of resilience. We are in a better situation than we were. Your children are having a wider range of experiences this term than they were this time last year. We need to remain positive and hopeful that better times continue to be ahead of us. 

Best wishes

Sharon Taylor

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Juniper Class experiment with Skittles

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A Midsummer Night's Dream