Dear Parents and Carers,

I would like to say a huge thank you to all of you! You have been wonderful in working with our new arrangements for drop off and pick up, and bearing with us whilst we make slight adjustments each day. Schools haven’t been in this position before and despite weeks of planning, until things are put into action you can’t see how they will pan out, so thank you for your patience. After the first day, drop off and pick ups have been much slicker.

Wow! We’ve completed our first week back in school altogether! The children have been absolutely amazing coming back into school following lockdown and the summer holiday. We have loved seeing their smiley faces and their delight in seeing their friends, teachers and classmates again. We have been joined by our new Reception children who arrived beautifully and have been fantastic in how they are adapting to life in “big school”. A big welcome to them and their families. We also have many new starters across the school, so a big welcome to them too.

Teachers have commented what a great week it has been in class with the children and have been so impressed with how the children are settling back into school life and work. The children have accepted the changes in school, keeping in their bubbles etc., and whilst we can’t have assemblies in the hall together, we are finding ways of holding assemblies in the classroom via technology.

As the guidance for Covid symptoms is ever changing, we have produced a quick reference guide which I hope will help answer some of these questions. This has been sent out on our app and is on the website. I suspect we may need to update the guide over the coming weeks as advice changes but it is a starting point for us all. However, please don’t hesitate to email annabelle.thomas@teignmouthschool.co.uk if you’re not sure about anything or give the School Office a call. It is becoming tricky to get a test currently, but please keep trying and they will become available.

As previously discussed, from Monday 28th September, your child will move up to their new class and class teacher. We will be building in some transition for your child on Friday 25th September so that they can become familiar with the new classroom and staff. This will be a ‘getting to know you’ day and will hopefully ease any worries that they may have before the weekend. On this day, your child will go straight to that teacher’s classroom but drop off and pick up times for this day will remain the same as it has the last few weeks.

We would usually do our ‘Meet the teacher’ session prior to transition but as we still cannot have parents into the school building, we would like to hold this virtually. This will be available to watch on the school website from Wednesday 23rd September. You can then e-mail the class teacher any questions that you have following it, or give the office a call and the teacher will phone you at a convenient time. It will give you an opportunity to meet the teacher, learn more about that year group and the learning that will take place, as well as being able to ask questions.

The timings for children being able to be dropped off and picked up from Monday 28th September will be the ones for the new class teacher below so they may be slightly different from what they are now. We have been flexible with supporting with siblings etc and so any difficulties please let us know. For safety, please try and stick to these times as much as possible.

Thank you for your ongoing support.

With very best wishes to you all,

Annabelle Thomas
Head of school