Final week of school 2020

 Shwmae all,

I am sorry to say it that this will be my final blog to you all. Firstly, I would like to thank you all for the very generous gift that was shared with me last week. I was quite overwhelmed to be honest so if you contributed I am very, very grateful. Mrs Ball will gladly steer me to spend it on baby related items no doubt! Also the lovely digital Moon Pig card was superb with kind messages from the children, diolch!

It is with mixed emotions that I say goodbye to you all. I am excited to start a new venture and be able to spend more parenting time with my own children but equally it has been an enjoyable experience working with the children for the second occasion. I am sure the children will testify that there is 'never a dull moment' in our class and challenging although the last year has been we have done our best to make the most of it by trying to have some fun alongside our daily working routines.

All schools posses different challenges but I think one of the most challenging things is when parents are difficult to engage with. This is certainly not the case at Penygawsi - You all care very much about the education and welfare of your children and it has been a pleasure to work with you to help them progress.

I hope everyone had a fun final day together on Friday, including a surprise visit from Mr Thomas. The children were very excited to meet him and are looking forward to working with him in January - I have one more game that I will share with everyone tomorrow. 

We had a surprise visit from father Christmas who gave us some gifts and we sang him part of our Christmas production song to say thank you:

See the link below for Santa's visit outside our class room.

A visit from santa

Work this week:

I understand that we are going to have significantly reduced numbers in class this week for the two days that we are in school as families begin to prepare for Christmas and are prioritising the safety of their families. It has been emphasised that you will not be penalised for keeping children at home over the next two days but you can still come to school as normal if that suits you best as a family.

We will communicate with the children at home via Teams at 9.15am after I have taken morning registration and the lunch register. We will duplicate the tasks we are doing in class and at home.

We are excited to announce that the 2020 Christmas concert is ready and we are going to share it online tomorrow. The children in school will be watching it in class after lunch and those home learning can do the same.

Tuesday - there will be some creative tasks in the morning and then we will be having a Christmas film (as the other classes) had their film afternoon last week.

Wed - Fri - will be to finish the learning task I will set you to complete by the end of the week.

Once again thank you for you support in working with me alongside the children over this term and in Year 3. I wish the children the best of luck as they make their final preparations for Year 6 and hope things return to normal so that the children can enjoy some class trips and other activities that we haven't been able to carry out this term.

Best wishes to you and your families and I hope you are able to make the most of the festive season whatever you decide to do.

Mr Ball

Wythnos: 8/12/2020

 Shwmae all,

 

Diolch yn fawr for the effort from everybody to engage last week to keep the children learning. Some fabulous work has been shared and I am working my way through your J2E folders and will add to the Learning conversation when I have reviewed the work.

 

Looking forward to seeing everybody again tomorrow. For those who don’t have a sibling in another year group if you would like to donate a luxury hamper prize please bring it in tomorrow and I will leave a box outside class for the items on entrance.

 

Tues: Introduction day with Mr Thomas working with us in class. You will also have a Fit for Fun session with Mitch while I meet with him as well so please wear your PE kit please. Also flu jabs in school as well.

 

Wed: Street dance today – wear PE kit. Can you also bring in your Christmas jumper /outfit in a bag to change into as we will record our class item for the school production as well. We will have our fayre games on Friday – see below:

 

Fri: As we are celebrating Save the Children Christmas jumper day today we will use that as our Fayre games day so wear your jumpers and bring in a £3 donation to pay for your craft and the prizes for the class games and treats for us to have in class. School will contribute a donation to Save the children. The school Christmas concert should be available to view online today if we can get the editing completed – there is no charge to parents to view the concert this year.

 

Thank you all for your continued support,

 

Mr Ball

 

Wythnos - 30/11/2020

Shwmae,

I hope everyone is safe and well. I trust everyone received a text from school about having to isolate from tomorrow. We are hopeful that the children will be able to return at some point this week but are just waiting to hear back from Public Health Wales to confirm this. 

Reminder that you do not need to get tested unless you or your child has been displaying any of the symptoms identified in the letter.

I'm sure the children told you that we have confirmed my replacement will be Mr R Thomas - who was due to visit us on Tuesday to meet me and the children. Unfortunately we have had to postpone the visit for this week but will aim to invite Mr Thomas in next week.

I have set up a brand new class group in TEAMS which pupils have to access through their HWB Office365 accounts.

We will use this platform to communicate whilst we are in isolation as the chat on J2E is used for more informal discussions between the class.

Please only post on our new thread if you have a direct question or point linked to work. No random posts eg 'hi guys what are you doing?' as it will take up to much room on the thread and I might miss an important question!

I will do a welcome to the class on Teams at 9.15am to explain the work for tomorrow. We can't do a live feed for safeguarding reasons and also I would need everyone to mute their mics and we wouldn't know if people were having difficulty hearing or not connected - so communication will mostly be via written messages on the TEAMS thread and I may post some tutorial videos / links if needed.

If you can tonight please respond the intial message I posted in TEAMS just to check I added you to the group correctly. Email me via your HWB if you can't see it for any reason. At the time of posting this blog Toby, Phoebe, Kai, Rosie-Mai and William had already responded so if you can just continue to reply underneath them (not write a new post) that would be great.

Speak to you all (online) in the morning,

Mr B

Wythnos: 23/11/20

  Shwmae,

The Christmas photo samples and order form is on the main blog page - please take a look.

This week PE will be on Wednesday again. New homework (mathematics task) will be set.

PTA Christmas raffle - Please support he PTA by selling your raffle tickets. As we cannot have a normal on site fair this year we will be creating extra luxury hampers instead of the tombola raffle.

Diolch,

Mr Ball

COVID safety poster competition

 As discussed in class here are the details of the competition. Please return your poster tomorrow in the poly pocket:

Dear Colleague

 

I think it would be really helpful to produce some child friendly posters to reinforce the need for parents/carers to display COVID safe behaviours. These should ideally encourage parents/carers to wear masks if possible, to socially distance, to drop off and leave swiftly, to park sensibly near schools and/or any other key message you think would be helpful to reinforce.   These will need to be colourful and have clear messaging that is easy to read.

 

The 5 best posters will be reproduced and shared around our schools in Rhondda Cynon Taf. Can you please ask children in years 5 and 6 to produce A3 posters using felt tips if at all possible. 

 

Many thanks

 

Gaynor  Davies