We have really been enjoying the wonderful entries for the weekly Head Teacher Challenge, thank you to everyone who has been taking part. The challenge for week 11 (01.06.20 – 05.06.20) is now available in our Keeping Connected section under the Parents tab on the main navigational menu. Here you can also view previous challenges along with all of the fabulous entries. Thanks, again, for your participation. Have fun and be creative — we can’t wait to see what you come up with this week!

What a fantastic job the children did when decorating the school nursery garden. They used special paints to decorate pots and they made sure lots of lovely young plants were carefully planted. The pots all had a different letter on them to help our younger children learn the alphabet. The nursery fence now looks stunning thanks to the variety of magical colour. The children had a great time with this task, and our nursery children will get a lovely surprise when they return.

A massive thank you to Angela for bringing the Ice Cream Van to school. We all really enjoyed the wonderful ice creams, there was just so much choice. Everyone sat in the school garden and had a lovely afternoon and the ice creams did a fantastic job cooling us down during the amazing heat wave!

As many of you may already know, both Durham Local Education Authority and DDMAT have taken the decision to delay extended opening of schools until 15th June 2020.

As a result, we have delayed our own extended opening plans for two weeks which now means we will operate as follows:

Week Commecing 1st June 2020:

Open to children of key workers and vulnerable children only.

Week Commencing 8th June 2020:

Open to children of key workers and vulnerable children only.

Week Commencing 15th June 2020:

Reception children will join the key worker children group.

Week Commencing 22nd June 2020:

Year 1 children, Reception children and key worker children will be allocated to one of three separate ‘bubbles’ or classrooms.

Week Commencing 29th June 2020:

Year 6 children (who are not already attending as key worker children) will join one of the three bubbles.

I would like to take this opportunity to clarify and answer some questions we have received from parents today:

· Parents (of children in Reception, Year 1 and Year 6) have already confirmed whether they want their child to return to school so those children have already been allocated to a bubble.

· We will be contacting parents of all children allocated to a bubble this week to ask them to confirm that they want the protected place and to ask them a series of questions highlighted in our risk assessment.

· We can only take a maximum of 27 children in the school (9 per bubble).

· Everyone with a space in the bubbles will receive specific instructions regarding the drop off, collection times and confirmation of what their child can bring into school with them.

· Children attending school will be completing the challenge grids – the same as the children who remain at home.

· Challenge grids will be put onto the website later this week and will provide activities for a two week period.

Please read the latest letter regarding the re-opening of schools:

Letter to DDMAT Parents and Carers Update 27 05 20

Please read the letter regarding Stanhope Barrington C of E Primary School’s plan to re-open:

22.05.20- Letter to Parents

Please see below a letter issued from Paul Rickeard (Chief Executive Officer of Durham Diocesan MAT). The letter outlines, in broad terms, the plan for the re-opening of ALL schools across the MAT.

Within this each school will be developing their own response to the current government guidelines.

The Senior Leadership Team have spent this week digesting the government guidelines, taking legal advice, taking Health and Safety advice, discussing proposed plans with our team and Academy Council and are currently writing detailed and complex risk assessments.

We will be issuing SCHOOL SPECIFIC plans later today. I appreciate that the CEO’s letter may raise questions for parents but please do not ring school with queries until the school specific information is released as this will hopefully give far more detail and specific information for you.

Thank you for your support and understanding.

Mr S Myers and Mrs D Cross

20.05.20 – Letter to parents from DDMAT

It’s National ‘Thank a Teacher Day’! We are therefore unashamedly fishing for feedback and comments from parents and children which we can then collate and send out to all of our staff team. They have been totally brilliant throughout the current Covid-19 Crisis and after half term we will be entering unfamiliar and strange territory. All of our staff are committed to support the children and our community during this period but we must also bear in mind that by doing so, they are putting themselves and their families at increased risk. Some of our team have vulnerable relatives and family members they are worried about but despite this they continue to put our children first.

We are honoured and proud to work with this dedicated team of people and think that by putting together some feedback from you all – this will give them a huge boost. Please email any comments to admin@stanhopebarrington.org.uk

Please note some of your comments may be used to on our school website.

Thank you

Mr Myers & Mrs Cross

Harehope Quarry and Durham County Council have organised a project for the half term holiday called ‘One A Day’.

Please see the flyer attached. We have arranged for our school to take part in this project in order to ensure that our families continue to receive support and packed lunches during the half term holidays when the school will be closed.

I would strongly encourage anyone and everyone to take up this offer. All you have to do is ring the number on the flyer below and register. You will then receive a packed lunch delivered to your door for each child in your household along with an activity for them to complete.

This is a fantastic project and well worth supporting!

Newsfeed – One A Day 2020