St Luke's C of E Primary School

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Coronavirus Update 16042020

 

Dear Parents & Carers,

Genesis 9 v12-16

 ‘Then God said, “This is the sign of the covenant I am making between me and you and every living creature with you, a covenant for all generations to come: I have set my rainbow in the clouds, and it will be the sign of the covenant between me and the earth. Whenever I bring clouds over the earth and the rainbow appears in the clouds, I will remember my covenant between me and you and all living creatures of every kind. Never again will the waters become a flood to destroy all life. Whenever the rainbow appears in the clouds, I will see it and remember the everlasting covenant between God and all living creatures of every kind on the earth.”’

Handmade rainbows have appeared in windows up and down the country. They have been created as a sign of joy for passers-by and support for the NHS and keyworkers in our nation. Why a rainbow? It’s bright, colourful, represents hope and a promise of better things to come. In the Genesis passage God speaks to Noah after the huge and destructive flood. He makes a new agreement with all living things, promising He will never flood the Earth again. Then God said…Whenever the rainbow appears in the clouds, I will see it and remember the everlasting covenant

“Jesus Christ is risen indeed, Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia. May the light of Christ, rising in glory, send away the darkness from our hearts and minds.”

I am sure that you would join with me in thanks and appreciation for all of our staff who have been working tirelessly to support our learners either in school or at home with their remote learning.

Please find below the latest updated information, some of which you may have already seen on Class Dojo and the school website.

 

Schooling for children of critical workers or have a vulnerable child

St Luke’s will continue to open from 8.50am until 3.00pm for key worker’s children and vulnerable children from all three schools.

Staff across the three schools will continue to provide for the children of key workers at the front line of the crisis and for vulnerable children at St. Luke’s School starting from Monday 20th April 2020 (The Inset Day planned for 20th April 2020 has been postponed.) 

It is important to understand that the following is still in place:

  • Ideally, a key worker’s child should remain with their parents if at all possible. Home is the safest place.
  • Evidence of your key worker entitlement, as defined by the government to remain active during the COVID-19 response, must be given by your employer
  • As we are providing childcare for children from all three schools, it is important that we ensure that we know in advance which days you are working and when you require your child/children to be in school, in order to ensure that we have enough staff in school.

If you or your child/ren have a temperature and/or a new persistent cough, please do not come into school.  Please telephone and leave a message on the answerphone.   It is important that we safeguard the children attending school and our staff. 

 

Schooling for children of non-critical key worker or have non-vulnerable children

Children should continue to remain at home with their parents. We will re-open fully as soon as we can when the national closure ceases and will let you know when this is by an update on our website.  It is important that pupils, parents and carers keep in contact with the school so that we know that you are all well.  Please ensure that you respond to Class Dojo messages etc.  

We are continually looking at ways to review and improve our home-learning programme as we go. We appreciate that some of you are not teachers and are trying to juggle working from home yourselves; I am sure you will all be developing your own unique approaches and schedules.

We will continue using Class Dojo as the main portal for setting learning activities and communicating with you until we have finalised our Google Classroom initiative. We need to ensure ease of use for you and for our staff too. 

 

Learners without PC / internet access

We are currently compiling packs of work for those who have told us they do not have access to the internet and/or a PC. This may take a little while to put together but we are endeavouring to get these out as soon as possible. Please let us know if your child would benefit from this. We are aiming to either deliver or to send out in the post; this may depend on the physical size of the packs.

I recognise that some of you might be experiencing issues with online access but if this is the case, kindly inform the school so that a learning pack can be prepared. Again, we are aiming to either deliver or to send out in the post; this may depend on the physical size. It is important to emphasise at this point that completion of all tasks is mandatory. 

Some learners are not visible on Class Dojo and have not been since the closure. This is concerning on many levels but mainly around academic progression and safeguarding. Kindly ensure your child has a visible presence so that they can interact with their class community and participate in the learning experiences outlined.

 

Advice to parents

It may be difficult for parents to manage the learning of their children over the coming weeks and possibly months. Every family will have a different dynamic and will approach the challenge differently. There will also be a good number of students who find the prospect of learning from home extremely difficult without the expertise and support provided by staff. Where possible we suggest the following:

  • Help your children structure the day/week ahead. Many will enjoy making a timetable for the week ahead.
  • Work at a desk or table in as quiet an environment where possible
  • Switch phones off if necessary 
  • Take regular breaks
  • Use rewards and praise to encourage and motivate

 

You may find that a member of staff will contact you to check that you are all well.  This will usually be the school number but it may also be a mobile number as the school has several work mobile phones, which are used by members of the Senior Leadership Team.  

 

Reception Places and Coronavirus 

Today is National Offer Day for pupils starting school in September 2020 (children born between 1st September 2015 and 31st August 2016). Here is a reminder of the information sent via Class Dojo and the school website.

If you have applied on time and online for your child's primary school place, you will have received an email on the evening of Thursday 16th April asking you to log in to your child’s online application to view the outcome.

With the outcome you will receive further details. It is important you read this through thoroughly, as this will be Lambeth’s Admissions formal notification to you and you will not receive confirmation by post. 

If you have applied on time with a paper copy of the Common Application Form for your child's primary school place, you will receive a letter first class on 16th April.

It is important that you respond to the offer made by logging on to your online account and completing this by Thursday 30 April 2020 and using the username and password supplied to you when you registered. 

You can then click on ‘view outcome’ and submit your acceptance. You will then receive a confirmation email. Instructions for this part of the process are on their webpage if needed. 

If you have a technical problem regarding logging on to the application please call London Grid for Learning on 020 8255 5555, option 1 during office hours.

Failure to accept the offer could result in your child's place being withdrawn and offered to another child. If you have secured alternative educational arrangements for your child e.g. you have secured an offer at a private school, and are rejecting the offer we have made, please inform Lambeth admissions of this by logging on to the online application and stating this.

Further information is available on their primary admissions webpage:  

https://www.lambeth.gov.uk/schools-and-education/school-admissions/apply-for-a-primary-school-place-for-2020-21

Please note that outcomes will not be given over the phone or by email from Lambeth School Admissions Team.

If you did not apply on time, as stated when you made your child’s application to Lambeth Admissions, because it was submitted after the deadline of 15 January 2020, it is classed as late. You will receive an email is to remind you that we will start fully processing these after 16th April (Primary National Offer Day). As the application was late you will not have received an outcome on this day, instead Lambeth Admissions will write to you with the outcome as soon as possible.  There are no set timescales for this.

Also, to ensure that the application is complete and processing is not hindered you must ensure that you have attached the required proof of address documents for you and your child, and child’s date of birth, as a matter of urgency. Below is the link to their webpage which states the documents we need to receive: https://www.lambeth.gov.uk/proof-of-address-and-date-of-birth-documents

Please pay particular attention to the dates on the documentation to ensure they are within the specified date range.

If you have a technical problem regarding logging on to the application please call London Grid for Learning on 020 8255 5555, option 1.

If you still have not applied, please apply to Lambeth Admissions as soon as possible (www.eadmissions.org.uk). Usually in an Academy Church School, admissions are offered by the school, however, reception spaces MUST be applied via Lambeth Admissions (until 1st September 2020 when applications are dealt with the school directly but in communication with Lambeth Admissions). 

Your application will be dealt with by Lambeth as detailed above for late applications.

What happens next?

Staff at St Luke’s School will contact parents offered a place at St Luke’s after the Easter Holidays.

Due to unknown timeframes regarding lock down, the date and format of school inductions, uniform collections etc will be affected. However, please be reassured that your child will have the smoothest transition into St Luke’s that is possible in the circumstances. We will write to parents and carers regularly to keep you informed on how we will do so.

 

Free School Meals (FSM) Provision Update

As you are aware from the messages on Class Dojo and possibly the national press, the orders placed within the Edenred systems were much higher than anticipated, which as you know impacted on parents receiving their vouchers.

The Department of Education and Edenred are trying to simplify future orders.

 

Therefore:

We have requested for 4 weeks of payments this week which hopefully you will receive shortly.

(If you have one child, you will receive £60; two children £120 and three children £180.  If you did not give your e-mail address to Mrs Atkins in the first week and missed last week’s payments, you will receive an additional £15 per child.

There are a few parents who have not given Mrs Atkins their e-mail addresses recently who may not be accessing Class Dojo, so we have a few vouchers at school which we will be able to give out. 

We will contact these parents next week.

We cannot provide FSM vouchers without FSM eligibility being provided.

 

Free School Meals – New applications

Due to the Coronavirus, your circumstances may have changed. 

 

Your child may be able to get free school meals if you get any of the following:

  • Income Support
  • Income-based Jobseeker’s Allowance
  • Income-related Employment and Support Allowance
  • Support under Part VI of the Immigration and Asylum Act 1999
  • The guaranteed element of Pension Credit
  • Child Tax Credit (provided you’re not also entitled to Working Tax Credit and have an annual gross income of no more than £16,190)
  • Working Tax Credit run-on - paid for 4 weeks after you stop qualifying for Working Tax Credit
  • Universal Credit - if you apply on or after 1 April 2018 your household income must be less than £7,400 a year (after tax and not including any benefits you get)

If you are not sure if your child is entitled to free school meals, then complete a check at the following London Grid of Learning site available to our parents: https://pps.lgfl.org.uk/

If you are entitled to FSM, the school should receive notification.  If you are not entitled, the school will not know that you have checked.  If you are entitled to free school meals and the school has your e-mail address, and you have not received vouchers etc please let Mrs Atkins know. 

If your child is eligible for free school meals, they will remain eligible until they have finished the phase of schooling (primary or secondary) they are in on 31st March 2022.

(Please note that there is a difference between pupils who are entitled to free school meals (i.e. their parents are entitled to certain benefits) and those children who are provided with universal free school meals (all pupils in Reception, Year 1 and Year 2).  The hampers and FSM vouchers are only for pupils entitled to free school meals.

 

Norwood & Brixton Foodbank

The Foodbank is for people who are in real crisis, so those for whom benefits have stopped, those who are waiting for benefits and have no other income to reply on, redundancy or excessive debt.

Please note that the Foodbank is not open at St Luke’s Church at the moment.  However, they are delivering food if requested. 

If you require a Foodbank voucher, please contact Lisa Atkins via Class Dojo or via email: admin@st-lukes-primary.lambeth.sch.uk.

 

Arbor and SIMS Pay

Arbor is up and running.  The letter/guide for parents and carers is ready to be sent. Mrs Atkins just wants to double check a few more things and hopefully next week, we can send the letter out to parents with the passwords to access Arbor. 

As we previously mentioned, you will be able to pay for meals etc on Arbor.  Therefore, please do not use SIMS Pay any longer.  All balances will be moved to Arbor. 

Even though we are not physically with you, we are very much here for you.  If you want to ask a question privately, please select: message on Class Dojo.

 

For queries about home learning etc, please contact the class teacher via Class Dojo.

 

The school office will be open from 8.30am to 3.30pm Monday to Friday but with reduced members of office staff. 

 

We will continue to keep in touch with any updates as the situation develops.  If you want to get in touch to share any concerns, please do not hesitate to contact us via the contact details on our website.

 

I would like to thank all parents and carers for their continued understanding and support during this time.

 

Yours sincerely

 

Mrs Nicky Zeronian-Dalley    

Executive Headteacher

 

Coronavirus16042020StL.pdf