15/03/21

Don't forget - Comic Relief Day is this Friday, the 19th March!

Wear your favourite superhero costume to school or come as a real-life superhero of the pandemic and make a donation.

Official Comic Relief Red Noses will be on sale for £1.50.

 

Easter Egg Decorating Competition

This year we will still be holding the Easter Egg Decorating Competition. Children will create their entries at home and will need to send a photograph with their name and a brief description of what they have created to laurelavenue@durhamlearning.net by Wednesday 24th March. We can't wait to see the exciting creations for 2021! 

End of term - Friday 26th March

Summer Term starts - Monday 12th April

 

11/03/21

Please click to read the guide to regular testing for parents with children at nurseries, schools and colleges

Home testing for coronavirus (COVID-19) for parents, carers and childcare and support bubbles

Undertaking regular, rapid coronavirus (COVID-19) testing helps reduce transmission of the virus. Parents and other adults in households with children at school or college, who do not have symptoms, can now access regular, rapid coronavirus (COVID-19) testing. This includes childcare and support bubbles.

Tests are fast, easy and completely free. There are different ways for a household, childcare or support bubble to collect their test to take at home, twice weekly:

Ø an employer if they offer testing to employees.

Ø by ordering a home test kit online from the link to the gov.uk website provided below:

https://www.gov.uk/order-coronavirus-rapid-lateral-flow-tests

There will be additional options available in future and we will contact you again when these are available.

If you have any queries about the tests, please call 119 (free from mobiles and landlines). Lines are open every day from 7am to 11pm.

Children of primary school age (and below) without symptoms are not being asked to take a test.

Testing is voluntary, but strongly recommended to all who are eligible. Alongside the vaccine, washing hands, wearing face coverings, and maintaining social distancing, rapid testing plays a vital role in reducing transmission rates. Getting into the habit of regular testing as part of our everyday lives will help us all to play our part and do what we can to protect each other.

Together we can make a difference if we all play our part to keep each other safe.

 

 

04/03/21

Good morning and Happy World Book Day 2021!

We will be celebrating World Book Day this year with a range of activities for children at home and in school. Story sharing and online masterclasses with authors will be taking place across the day.

We’d love to see photographs of your child/ren reading a book today to put on Facebook so please send your photographs to laurelavenue@durhamlearning.net

Happy reading!

Please get in touch if you want to discuss arrangements for Monday or need any help.

Ms Davison 💜

 

01/03/21

Welcome to a new week and the last week of home schooling! We hope that you're all well.

Let's keep going and complete all of our work at home this week before all children are welcome back to school from next Monday.

We have a few events planned for over March - please see attached flyer.

Please get in touch if you need any support.

Information will be coming out soon to remind everyone of the routines for returning to school.

Ms Davison 💜

23.02/21

Good morning. 😃

I’m sure that you all heard Boris Johnson confirm last night that all children will return to school on Monday March 8th. Such great news and we can’t wait to see everyone again! 🤩👍

We will be returning to staggered starts and collection times again but all information will be sent out next week to remind everyone of what those details were.

All meal vouchers were delivered yesterday so if you have not redeemed yours yet, please check for an email from Edenred.

Have a great day, work hard and keep safe. Please get in touch if you need any support.

Ms Davison 💜

 

 

22/02/21

Good morning and welcome back to the start of a new half term. I hope that you have all managed to have a relaxing week and everyone is well and safe. I’m sure you are all waiting to hear the announcement from Boris Johnson tonight, as much as we are in school, where he will hopefully confirm that all children will be able to return on the 8th March. In the meantime, home learning for today is available on the Class Dojo as well as information about any live lessons that your child may have. I wish you all a great start to the half term and as always, please get in touch if you need support with anything or if you need to borrow a laptop to support your child’s work at home.

The order for free school meal vouchers was placed today so please check the usual email address for an email from Edenred later on today. I will send a text when I see that they have been delivered.

february newsletter

Ms Davison 💜

 

09/02/21

Good morning. Today is Safer Internet Day 2021!

Safer Internet Day 2021 is being celebrated in the UK with the theme: An internet we trust: exploring reliability in the online world. There's lots of opportunities for children and young people online, but it's not always easy to work out what's reliable and know how to spot misinformation.

There will be a focus today in school and at home on Safer Internet Day. For more information, please click here: https://www.saferinternet.org.uk/safer-internet-day/2021

Ollee – Parents’/Carers' area

Ollee is an app designed to help children articulate their feelings and share them with their parents/carers – and to help parents/carers talk to their children about what they’re going through.

It's not always easy to get children to open up. Ollee is here to help you have tricky conversations and to give your child extra support when they need it. Find out more below.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SUan1KnUB-o&feature=emb_logo

https://parentzone.org.uk/ollee/for-parents

Please get in touch if you need support.

Reminder that Friday is the start of half term. I will be ordering meal vouchers for after the holidays this week, to be delivered on 19th February for the first two weeks of next half term.

Ms Davison 💜

 

 

 

29/01/21

Happy Friday 😃

Audible Stories

For as long as schools are closed, Audible is open. Children everywhere can instantly stream an incredible collection of stories, including titles across six different languages, that will help them continue dreaming, learning, and just being children.

audible

Oxford Owl's free library of books!

Oxford Owl's free eBooks collection, developed for children aged 3–11 years old, have made even more eBooks available here, for the duration of UK school closures, so that your child has more to read. Try and read every day - it really does unlock so much of the rest of the curriculum and in life.

oxford owl

Vouchers from Edenred have been delivered so check your email accounts. Please call if there are any issues.

Our stars will be announced later today. Who will they be this week? 🤩🤩🤩🤩🤩🤩

Take care,

Ms Davison 💜

28/01/2021

School meal vouchers from Edenred are due to be delivered to email addresses tomorrow so please look out for them. They will be delivered to the same email address as last time and will cover the next two weeks before half term.

Meal vouchers will be provided by Durham County Council again this half term - £20 per child for the week. The vouchers will be emailed to you the week before half term in the same way that they were over Christmas. We will let you know when they have been sent. 

 

The NHS have issued a warning about fake Coronavirus Vaccination invites which are circulating by email. 

The emails contain a link to register for the vaccine which, when clicked, requests substantial personal information including bank details.

 For more information follow the link below to the BBC news article.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-55811161

 

 

27/01/21

I am sure that you will have heard the announcement today that schools will not open until the 8th March at the earliest. This makes it even more important that all children are accessing and completing their work online at home. If you are having any problems with technology at home or accessing the work in any way, please let us know - 0191 3868416 or email on laurelavenue@durhamlearning.net. We will probably be able to help and make home learning a little bit easier. Keep up the hard work everyone and please get in touch if you need support, no matter how small. 

 

user guide for edenred vouchers

 

14/01/21

Good morning.

Thank you for your quick replies yesterday about school vouchers. It was great news announced yesterday that the Government has allowed the voucher scheme again which will come into place for lunches from next week.

I have just received my email from Edenred about ordering the vouchers. They are staggering when schools can place their order so I will receive an email some time next week to start ordering. I will let you know when this is. I will be able to prepare the spreadsheet in advance so that the order can go in quickly once we have received the go ahead. The email address used for vouchers over the Christmas holidays will be used. Please get in touch if you have changed your email address since then. I will be ordering one voucher per household for two weeks. So if you have one child, you will receive a voucher for £30 for two weeks; two children will receive £60 etc. Please get in touch if you have more than two children and would prefer weekly vouchers instead. 

For those parents/carers who have not ordered vouchers via Edenred before, I will upload the guide for you. It is currently not working on the Edenred site but I'll keep checking and upload it when it is available.

Please get in touch if you have any questions.

Thank you.

Ms Davison

 

12/01/21

 

The nursing team are still holding a variety of catch up clinics for the children who have not yet received the flu vaccination. Parents/carers who did not consent previously, can also attend these clinics with their children. Please click to find a list of catch up clinics.

catch up clinics

07/01/2021

Good morning. We hope that everyone is well and managing to access all their work on the Class Dojo. We are really working hard to make sure that all children working at home are able to complete their learning successfully.

The Government has a scheme which can temporarily increase data allowances for mobile phone users on certain networks. This is so children and young people can access remote education if their face-to-face education is disrupted, as is currently the case.

 

We may be able to request mobile data increases for children who:

• do not have fixed broadband at home

• cannot afford the additional data needed to access educational resources or social care services

• have access to a mobile device that uses a participating network

• are facing disruption to their face-to-face education, or have been advised not to attend school

 

What data you will get depends on your mobile network. Some networks can’t offer data to Pay-as-you-go (PAYG) customers.

Children with access to a mobile phone on one of the following networks might be able to benefit:

• Three

• Smarty

• Virgin Mobile

• EE

• Tesco Mobile

• Sky Mobile

 

If you are relying on mobile data, and would like us to request a free temporary mobile data allowance increase to support home learning, please email laurelavenue@durhamlearning.net with the following information.

• the account holder’s name

• the mobile number (a number beginning with ‘07’)

• the mobile network

• whether you pay monthly or pay as you go

We will also need to explain the privacy policy to the account holder which can be read here:

privacy policy

You would receive a text message when the free data has been activated. This data can be used when tethering a mobile phone to another device for internet access.

Please get in touch if you need any support.

Ms Davison 💜

 

06/01/2021

Good morning! I hope that you are all well.

Thank you so much to all families who have logged in and got straight back into home learning using their Dojo. We have been really pleased to see such a high level of engagement. New work will be added each day and you are able to communicate with your child's teacher using Dojo if you have any issues. Teachers are teaching lessons in school still so if they don't reply immediately, this is why. 

If you have ordered a free school packed lunch, they will be available from 11.30 am each day (until the care packages start to be delivered). Mrs Bell will be ready by the kitchen door to hand them to you. Please keep to the social distancing rules as you are waiting - thank you.

I've had a few queries about the school care packages for children eligible for free school meals. I know it's confusing so I'll let everyone know here the answers to those questions.

1. As a school who uses Taylor Shaw for school meals, we have only been given the option for packed lunches as we currently have in place, moving to care packages hopefully from next week. We have not been given the option to have vouchers again. If this changes, we will let you all know immediately. 

2. Care packages will need to be collected from school. We will text to let you know when they have been delivered.

3. We have not been given an option to change the contents of the packages. 

4. All Infant children currently get free school meals as part of the Government's Universal Infant Free School Meal scheme. Unfortunately, it is only those children who would eligible for a free school meal anyway, regardless of the universal scheme, who are eligible for the care packages.

If you have not let school know yet if you would or would not like to order these packages from next week, please let us know today. A text was sent at 3.00 pm yesterday which you will still be able to reply to. 

 

Thank you for your cooperation and kind words. Please get in touch if you need any support. We're here to help. 

Ms Davison 💜

 

Free School Meals

Taylor Shaw, school’s catering company, have been in touch to inform us that children eligible for free school meals, who are not in school, will receive a weekly care package from next week. We will still have packed lunches for you to collect each day until these care packages start to be delivered. We will let you know as soon as we know the date. This will depend on how quickly everyone gets back to school with their order.

Each child will receive one care package per week. So, if you have two children, you will receive two packages a week, etc.

Every care package will contain:

1 loaf of bread

2 packets of bread buns

Cucumber

Tomatoes

200g of cheese

½ dozen eggs

1 tin of beans

5 portions of fruit

4 fruit yoghurts

A text will be sent at 3.00 pm today to ask if you would like a care package for each of your children. Please reply yes or no and I will order them for you.

Thank you.

 

 

Letter from Lily Morris, our Positive Futures Advisor:

click to read letter

 

05/01/2021

Happy New Year everyone!

We hope that you all managed to have time over Christmas to celebrate together in some way with your family and friends, even if not in the same way as usual. We also hope that you are all well or recovering quickly if you have been ill.

The start of the new term has not been as we hoped but I would like to thank everyone for working with us so brilliantly yesterday so that we could be prepared this morning to start with home learning. Teachers worked hard yesterday to transfer their lesson plans to the Dojo so please do make sure that you log on this morning to start to get into new routines at home.

As you will have heard from Boris Johnson's announcement last night, schools will now be closed to most children (apart from critical workers and vulnerable children) for the whole of this half term.

We are in school to support you with this so please get in touch.

Teachers emails are as follows:

Nursery: c.lawson101@laurelavenue.durham.sch.uk

Class 1: j.meehan200@laurelavenue.durham.sch.uk

Class 2: v.mills300@laurelavenue.durham.sch.uk

Year 3: a.duffy155@laurelavenue.durham.sch.uk

Year 4: l.tosney300@laurelavenue.durham.sch.uk

Class 4: h.walters101@laurelavenue.durham.sch.uk

School address: laurelavenue@durhamlearning.net

Telephone: 0191 3868416

We are here to help and support you all, so if you need any help or any log in information or guidance, please contact us today so that we can get off to a great start with home learning.

Please stay safe everyone and take care.

Ms Davison 💜