Latest News
Keep up to date with all the latest news happening in school at the moment.
-
Christmas Class Videos
Thu 17 Dec 2020Please follow the links below to view our class Christmas Videos.
The staff and children have worked so hard on these and we hope you enjoy them. They will certainly put a smile on your face and bring you some Christmas cheer!
Wishing you all a very merry Christmas and happy new year!
Nursery AM:
Nursery PM:
Reception:
Year 1 Blue & Yellow group:
Year 1 Green & Red group:
Year 2:
Year 3:
Year 4
Version 1:
Version 2:
Year 5:
Year 5/6 Video 1:
Year 5/6 Video 2:
-
Positive case
Thu 17 Dec 2020We have received confirmation of a positive case today and therefore have made the decision to close the school to all pupils today (which should have been our last day before the Christmas holidays began) as a further precaution.
Letters have been sent to all parents of pupils in the Y5 class (Mrs Fish's class only) that need to self-isolate. as well as a letter to the whole school. (Copies of these are on the website in the latest news- letters in date order section)
This is not the ending to the school term that anyone would have wanted but we hope you understand that our main priority is to protect the health and safety of all pupils, staff and their families and doing this precautionary measure is to try to ensure families get to enjoy Christmas Day together (in their Christmas bubbles).
The pantomime has been sorted to be shared when we return for those that didn't get to watch it yesterday and their goody bags will still be there for them then.
You will also receive links today so you can see your child's mini Christmas message/performance. We hope you enjoy these.
You will be sent some activities that your child can do at home today. If you have any questions to do with this, please e-mail your child's teaching staff. If you have any other questions, please e-mail myself (headteacher@anthonybek.derbyshire.sch.uk) or Mrs Smith (clairesmith@anthonybek.derbyshire.sch.uk) and we'll do our best to help you.
Please remember if your child develops symptoms, please order them a test and contact me/Mrs Smith at the above addresses to let us know you have ordered a test and to let us know the result so we can contact anyone that is a close contact.
Many thanks- I wish you all a wonderful Christmas and New Year.
Let's hope 2021 is a better year for all,
Best wishes,
Mrs. Johnson
P
-
Christmas reminders
Wed 16 Dec 2020Christmas reminders
Wednesday 16th December 2020
Dear Parents and Carers,
Christmas is almost upon us and I’m sure you are looking forward to spending time with loved ones you may not have been able to spend time with for quite some time.
Keeping safe
We continuously remind pupils about keeping themselves as safe as possible in school, maintaining distance, not having face to face conversations, washing/sanitising hands etc to ensure we keep the risks as low as possible.
It is more important than ever that we all follow these guidelines as any positive cases or close contacts from today onwards, mean all those affected would have to self-isolate all the way up to Christmas and on Christmas day.
I do not want to be giving that message to any class. Please do your part in ensuring the risks are as low as possible by:
- Wearing a face covering outside of school
- Staying 2m away from everyone not in your household bubble (or extended support bubble if you are supporting a single adult household)
- Not mixing with other household in homes and gardens
Our choices affect others so we need to ensure we all remember this at all times but especially now.
Christmas videos
Each class has made a short Christmas video which will be shared with you all via links on e-mails and on the school website tomorrow. We hope you enjoy these.
INSET-Fri 18th December
Remember tomorrow is the last day as Friday is now and INSET day and school will be completely closed so please ensure your child takes everything home they might have in school that you need over the holidays.
Reminder- Contract tracing during the holidays
It is really important that you help with the contract tracing if your child develops symptoms after school has closed for Christmas. You will need to make contact if:
1. Your child develops symptoms on Friday 18th or Saturday 19th December (and they were in school on Wednesday 16th or Thursday 17th December). You will need to organise a test straight away and inform us of the results as soon as you receive them.
2. Your child receives a positive test result on Friday 18th or Saturday 19th December and they were in school 48 hours before the test result (if no symptoms) or in school anytime in the 48 hours before they showed symptoms.
3. Your child receives a positive test result anytime up to Wednesday 23rd December. Please send confirmation of the result as well as the date when symptoms were first noticed and the last date your child was in school.
Please e-mail me in the first instance:
headteacher@anthonybek.derbyshire.sch.uk
I will check my e-mails at 10am, 4pm and 8pm each day. I will respond to you so you know I have received your e-mail.
In the unlikely event that I am unavailable and you do not get a response at the times above (closest to the time you sent the e-mail), please e-mail Mrs Smith:
clairesmith@anthonybek.derbyshire.sch.uk
If your child tests positive from 24th December onwards, you do not need to contact school until school reopens after the holidays.
If your child has been a close contact
If I receive confirmation from a parent that a child has tested positive or from a staff member and subsequently then identify your child has been a close contact, I will send an e-mail and text message to alert you about this. It is therefore really important that you ensure the details we hold for you are accurate and you check your messages daily. You will need to ensure your child follows the 14 day isolation as per the government guidelines in this case. Please send a confirmation e-mail to the addresses above to confirm you have received this information if your child is identified as a close contact of a positive case.
I truly hope no Parent/Carer or staff member has to contact me to inform me of a positive case and therefore I don't have to contact any staff family to tell them that their child needs to self-isolate or contact any staff member to tell them that they have to self-isolate over the Christmas period.
Thanking you in advance for your support.
All that leaves me to say is we wish you all a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. Good health to you all,
Take care,
Mrs Johnson
-
Lea Green change
Wed 09 Dec 2020As you know from the text sent, the Government have extended the date that residential visits cannot take place to 31st March 2021. This means that our planned residential visit cannot go ahead next year. (Sadly, we only just missed out by 1 day)
Clearly we understand why this is but we are disappointed too as this experience is a wonderful opportunity for pupils.
I have spoken to the Lea Green staff and thankfully there is an alternative offer which doesn’t mean children sleep over (that’s the part that is not allowed) but will still give them an amazing experience.
Lea Green are offering us a full extended day visit instead which will include the same type of activities on the PowerPoint that you watched when you decided to let your child take part, e.g. ropes course, soft play area, treasure hunt, climbing wall, go-karts, obstacle course, team building games etc. They will also be provided with an evening meal.
To give them the fullest day possible, children will leave school at 8:30am (so will need to be in school at 8:10am). They will leave the centre at 6:25pm so will be back approximately 7:15pm.
They will still need to bring a packed lunch for lunchtime as they would have done originally.
The cost of this visit will be £25 per child, including all the activities, transport and evening meal which is still a very fair price.
We are offering this to the children who originally booked Lea Green first.
If you decide you want your child to take part in this extended day visit, the monies you have paid will transfer to this trip and any extra money you may have already paid will be refunded to you as soon as Lea Green return the money to us. This will most likely be in January.
If you decide you no longer want your child to take part, all monies you have paid, will be refunded to you in January when Lea Green refund school.
If we have spaces, we will offer to the other pupils in Y1 and Y2 who didn’t originally book the Lea Green trip.
If there is not enough interest, the whole trip will be cancelled and all monies refunded.
Please e-mail Mrs Grant your decision by Friday 11th December using the following e-mail address:
enquiries@anthonybek.derbyshire.sch.uk
Kind regards,
Mrs D. M. Johnson
-
New INSET day and contact over the Christmas holidays
Tue 08 Dec 2020You may have seen in the news today that schools have been given permission from the Government to make Friday 18th December an INSET day. This is to ensure that school staff do not have to work on Christmas Eve. I'm sure you will agree that after the challenges this year has brought, expecting staff to work on Christmas Eve (when they are not paid or contracted to work and when they should be with their families) is not really fair.
Public Health England has agreed a 6 day window after the final day of teaching in which schools are asked to remain contactable so they can assist with contact tracing where necessary. This will allow enough time for positive coronavirus (COVID-19) cases to be identified and confirmed by a test and for relevant contacts in the education setting to be traced. If school was open on Friday 18th December, this would mean that school staff would have to remain contactable and potentially have to contact staff and parents of pupils following the contract tracing procedure on the 24th December (the 6th day). Making Thursday 17th December the last day for pupils and closing the school for INSET would mean the last day staff would be asked to do this would be 23rd December which although is still not ideal for school staff, it is better than having to work on Christmas Eve.
Supporting parents with advice and assisting with contract tracing has led to a huge increase in workload in the evenings, weekends and holidays so it is pleasing that the Government has finally recognised that asking staff to work an additional 6 days of the holidays is a big ask anyway without it impacting Christmas Eve.
This issue has been highlighted to the Government since the beginning of the term (I'm sure you will have seen lots about it in the news) so it is highly frustrating that they have left it this late to make this decision. I appreciate for some of you, this may mean you are now having to look for childcare at this late stage and I'm sorry if this causes you any inconvenience but this decision was out of our control.
Contract tracing during the holidays
It is really important that you help with the contract tracing if your child develops symptoms after school has closed for Christmas. You will need to make contact if:
1. Your child develops symptoms on Friday 18th or Saturday 19th December (and they were in school on Wednesday 16th or Thursday 17th December). You will need to organise a test straight away and inform us of the results as soon as you receive them.
2. Your child receives a positive test result on Friday 18th or Saturday 19th December and they were in school 48 hours before the test result (if no symptoms) or in school anytime in the 48 hours before they showed symptoms.
3. Your child receives a positive test result anytime up to Wednesday 23rd December. Please send confirmation of the result as well as the date when symptoms were first noticed and the last date your child was in school.
Please e-mail me in the first instance:
headteacher@anthonybek.derbyshire.sch.uk
I will check my e-mails at 10am, 4pm and 8pm each day. I will respond to you so you know I have received your e-mail.
In the unlikely event that I am unavailable and you do not get a response at the times above (closest to the time you sent the e-mail), please e-mail Mrs Smith:
clairesmith@anthonybek.derbyshire.sch.uk
If your child tests positive from 24th December onwards, you do not need to contact school until school reopens after the holidays.
If your child has been a close contact
If I receive confirmation from a parent that a child has tested positive or from a staff member and subsequently then identify your child has been a close contact, I will send an e-mail and text message to alert you about this. It is therefore really important that you ensure the details we hold for you are accurate and you check your messages daily. You will need to ensure your child follows the 14 day isolation as per the government guidelines in this case. Please send a confirmation e-mail to the addresses above to confirm you have received this information if your child is identified as a close contact of a positive case.
I truly hope no Parent/Carer or staff member has to contact me to inform me of a positive case and therefore I don't have to contact any staff family to tell them that their child needs to self-isolate or contact any staff member to tell them that they have to self-isolate over the Christmas period.
You can all help make the risks of this happening as low as possible by consistently following the rules for our tier. I know we are all fed up with the COVID rules but I'm sure you all want Christmas to be as special as possible. I know I certainly want to spend mine with the family I'm allowed to meet with and I'm sure you feel the same so please, please help us all achieve this.
Thanking you in advance for your support.
Mrs Johnson
-
Christmas is coming!
Thu 03 Dec 2020Christmas Decorations
The 'elves' were very busy last night making our school look very festive! Seeing the children's faces this morning was fabulous and just what we all need to keep everyone feeling positive in these challenging times. Usually, most of you would get to see our decorations and lights when attending one of our usual performances but as we can't do that, we've taken some photographs so you can see for yourself. It's definitely 'Beginning to look a lot like Christmas' as the song goes.
Advent window
We have taken part in the community advent event. Our window is today-3rd December. If you haven't already seen it, have a look- it's in the windows to the left of the main Reception. It looks much better when it starts to get dark but obviously for safety reasons we have to turn the lights off when we leave school so please look before 6pm. The display will stay up for the duration of advent so if you don't get to see it today, you'll still have the opportunity. Have a look around the community to see who else is taking part in the advent event.
Christmas Community Challenge
Hopefully you all remember my Community challenges earlier in the year? Well, I thought it was a good time to set another. You may have noticed in front of our advent window is a bare tree (also pictured below). We would love our school community to help decorate this tree to make it a spectacular community tree. Therefore, we are asking each household to make a decoration to hang on our tree. The decoration needs to be made of something that will cope with wind, rain and even snow! You may want to make a decoration to remember someone special to your family. Please add your child's/ family name to the decoration as this will also be a competition with prizes for 1st, 2nd, 3rd.
Please send your decoration with your child as soon as possible so we can start to make the tree look festive. The deadline for decorations is Wednesday 16th December and prizes will be awarded on the last day. Hopefully, this will be the best community challenge yet!
Best wishes,
Mrs. Johnson
