Covid-19 Update 01.05.20

Dear Parents/Carer,

We have now completed the second week of the Summer Term. It was very clear from the Prime Minister’s words during yesterday’s Downing Street briefing that lockdown will continue for the foreseeable future.

Staying safe online during the coronavirus outbreak

The Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport has published new guidance on what you can do to stay safe online during the coronavirus outbreak. The guidance also has tailored advice for parents to keep their children safe online. This includes using parental controls to manage what children can access, switching on family filters to protect children from inappropriate content, and having conversations with children to encourage them to speak to a trusted adult if they come across anything online that makes them uncomfortable.

Up to date contact details

Now more than ever it’s really important that we have the most up to date contact details for parents and carers. If your home or mobile telephone numbers, or email has changed please email info@plashet.newham.sch.uk with the new details, and name and form group of your daughter(s).

Students with SEND

The BBC have launched a fantastic Parents’ Toolkit to support families homeschooling young people with SEND. It covers wellbeing, activities and learning and top tips and advice. It is entitled Parents’ Toolkit: SEND BBC Bitesize and can be found here. I hope that it is useful for our families. The following resources may also be useful:
Common Sense Media: here
Childnet: here

Keeping children safe

The NSPCC has created a number of resources to support parents and carers during this difficult time. Topics include:
Talking to a child worried about coronavirus
Parents working from home
Children staying home alone
Lockdown and separated parents
How to cope with tantrums and other difficult behaviour.
The advice can be found on the NSPCC website here.

As your daughter is not allowed to socialise in person with friends at the moment, you may find that she is spending more time on social media. Please see this helpful guide on how parents and carers can keep children safe when using social media here.

As ever, if you have any concerns about your child’s safety or wellbeing, or that of any other child, please email safegarding@plashet.newham.sch.uk.

My thanks to you all for supporting your daughter’s in their engagement with online learning and it is important that momentum with this is maintained. I would however like to remind all parents to be realistic in terms of what you can do at home. Please do not put too much pressure on yourselves to replicate school or worry unnecessarily about your daughter falling behind. Share your calmness, share your strength and share your laughter with your daughter. No girls are ahead. No girls are behind. Your daughter’s are exactly where they need to be – with you at home and safe.

Ramadan Mubarak to all our Muslim families.

I will be in touch next week with a further update, but until then stay safe and well.

Yours faithfully,

Rachel McGowan

Head Teacher
Plashet School