Welcome to a new school year
It has been lovely to bring the school back to life after the summer break and a strange few months! As you are fully aware, school life looks a little different from the way we normally do things, but it's funny how quickly we're all getting used to the 'new normal' and ensuring that school life continues to be creative, supportive and fun!
The children in Years 1-6 arrived back on Thursday 3rd with huge smiles, bags of energy and an impressive understanding of how to keep themselves and others safe. They rapidly slipped back in to school routines and learning and are also showcasing the amount of work that has been going on at home during the lock down.
They have probably already said to you about the assessments that they are having in class or will be having very soon - these are an important way for us to have an early snapshot of where they are and what we need to focus on in terms of a recovery curriculum. Once we know the gaps in learning, we can start to work on these through additional sessions in school as a class, a small group or 1:1 and also through home learning.
On Monday, our new Foundation Stage children joined us with a fabulous 'slide into school'. They are, like the rest of DPS students, a remarkable group of children; they have come in with big smiles and a fabulous enthusiasm for school life. It has been a great start!
We have welcomed new children this week and three new members of staff as you'll see below. A very warm welcome to Mr Nik Larcombe, a Year 5 class teacher. Mr Larcombe has lots of teaching experience and is also a published children's author! We are also delighted to welcome Mrs Heleena Kalyana and Ms Carolina Pizzino - they are both valued members of our cleaning team and are doing a fabulous job keeping us extra clean and sanitised.
The year ahead is likely to be full of challenges from a COVID point of view, but I have no doubt that we will all work through these together with everyone's health and the children's progress as our number one priority. Please continue to keep in close contact with us and let us know immediately if you have any medical updates or would like to talk about any other part of school life.
Have a lovely weekend,
Rachel Rice
head@deanshanger.northants-ecl.gov.uk
