This week we began our series of parent workshops. Parents joined us in the session both online and face to face. To have parents back onsite was amazing!
The focus of this first session was sharing our observations on trends and patterns we are identifying within our students. Has Covid, lockdown and numerous school closures and disruptions had an impact?
Our general findings
Covid has presented a number of challenges for children including play deprivation, isolation, acclimatising to ‘new norms’ such as mask wearing, online learning and probably most challenging of all; continual uncertainty.
Play continues to be a challenge at school as current SOPs do not allow our children to play at break times. However, we are always communicating with our students to make break times enjoyable and fun by providing extra equipment and resources that allow children to have an enjoyable break whilst remaining safe and adhering to SOPs.
We are observing incredible resilience levels amongst our students. They are becoming increasingly more able to manage their emotions, articulate their feelings and discuss Covid related issues.
Since being open, students have begun reconnecting with one another, adapting quickly and their general optimism and positive outlook has been amazing.
We are undoubtedly noticing personal, social and emotional challenges for individual students but we have a lot of confidence in our approaches to pastoral care and PSHE which are heavily underpinned by the principles of Positive Psychology. Our weekly assemblies, our wellbeing and PSHE lessons, along with the care and attention we provide for every child, have played a major role in supporting our students to deal with the challenges they have faced.
The academic picture is also largely positive. Academic data of our students is supportive of the idea of learning decay rather than learning loss. Please see here and here to learn more about the concept of learning decay.
Our students on the whole performed very well on the most recent series of standardised tests. However, we are continuing our practice of regular data conversations about students at an individual level, analysing gaps and adjusting curriculum content where necessary.
What can you do as a parent?
As parents we recommended these five points:
- Send your child to school. It is the best place for them.
- Listen to what your child says and how they are feeling
- Be clear about what is happening - talk in an age appropriate way
- Use the school’s language of positive psychology
- Reach out to us if you need help
We are looking forward to more parents joining us for future sessions.
