Woodfield Newsletter

Friday 26th March 2021

Good afternoon,

We've now completed the last full week of this term, we have three days next week with the school closing for the term break on March 31st.

With regards to summer term timings, for the first half of the term, we will continue to work with the current curriculum, school day times and covid protocols. That means 2:15 pm finish time, and maintaining our class/zone bubbles as they currently are, and continuing with our current modified curriculum.

We are currently working on plans to enable us to return to a 3:00pm finish from the start of the second half of summer term (i.e. commencing June 7th 2021). This will require us to make adjustments to our timetable, continue to maintain our covid protocols whilst ensuring teachers continue to receive their statutory allocated time for preparation and marking. We expect to have these plans finalised in the first few weeks of summer term.

Jack Petchey Awards
I would like to congratulate the following students who have been recognised for their achievements through the Jack Petchey Awards Programme.

The award winners were: Harris Butt, Italo Ferreira, Leo Gilby, Bianca Nazare, Piotr Maciag, Dennis Alcala and Mohammed Abdullahi.

These students will be recognised at the special virtual presentation over the next few weeks.  They were each given a cheque for £250 which has been used to create new clubs and innovative experiences within the school community. They have put the money towards robotics, trampolines, interactive recreational games, and other electronic gadgets. These will be used in new clubs set up across the school for all pupils to access.  

Thank you Harris, Italo, Leo, Bianca, Piotr, Dennis and Mohammed. You are WINNERS!!!

Brent SEND Newsletter
The Brent SEND Newsletter for March is now available to view. If you did not pick up the link from the SMS sent earlier this week, you can download the newsletter here. The newsletter has a lot of information about accessing support services and support groups in Brent.

Covid Home Testing
Please make sure you continue to keep up with the home testing regime, especially over the term break. If you feel you do not have enough tests to be able to undertake the twice weekly testing, order more from the NHS testing site. More details of the program, including how to order more test kits should your require, are in the Covid Testing section below.

Term Dates for 2021-2022
The term dates for 2021-2022 are now published on our website. Whilst we do not expect any changes to these date, if we are required to do so, we will inform you of any changes.

Music Therapy Tuesday 23rd March
Parent Coffee Morning session was a presentation explaining What is Music Therapy led by our music therapist, Dini Sharman
Some of the areas that were covered included:

• MT within the Arts Therapies.  
• What is Music Therapy
• What might therapy sessions look like 
• How MT can support students in promoting a sense of wellbeing, and what might the aims and objectives be?.
• Practicalities & QA

Upcoming Parent Virtual Coffee Morning RSE Tuesday 30th March
We will host a virtual parents Meeting on RSE (Relationship and Sex Education) for KS3 and 4 parents on 30 of March, from 10:45 a.m. - 12:15 p.m. 

With the changes made to RSE policies since September 2020, it is important that we keep you informed regarding our statutory responsibilities and how we as a community can incorporate the requirements, keeping the needs of our students in mind. 

The meeting will help us to shape and share our policy and curriculum. We have the policy for you to view on the website, for those who would like to read it and get back with suggestions beforehand. However, we encourage parents to attend the workshop, as we can discuss and go through the videos we plan to use in the lessons. 

As usual,  Patsy moderating and sending out links to parents with meeting details shortly before the meeting commences. If you have any questions beforehand, contact Patsy (phu@compasslp.co.uk). These sessions are recorded to allow those unable to make the live session review it. Remember to turn off your camera if you do not want to be recorded.
 

Message from the Brent Carers Forum regarding an event, Tuesday 27th April
Would you like to know more about how schools support your son/daughter to access learning in a way that meet their individual needs ?

Have you heard about The Graduated Approach ?

Join us on Tuesday 27th April to hear more about some the changes being made and to tell you more about the processes in place in every school to ensure children and young people with SEND learn and have fun.

Details to follow on registration, and you can register by clicking here!

Click the flyer below for details of an Easter term break camp.

Covid home testing
Home testing kits are now available to order for free from this website. Instructions for using an at home lateral flow testing kit can be downloaded from the government website. We began to distribute home testing kits to pupils on Monday to take home with them, and will continue to supply these every 10 days or so. Can we remind parents the government is suggesting testing twice weekly testing (or at least every 3-5 days) . If you do record a positive test for your child, follow the guidance provided by the government on this page.

Following the success of the asymptomatic testing programme on the return to school, it is vital to keep testing at home throughout the Easter holidays and into the summer term.

• test twice a week at home from now on
• report results online as positive, negative or void
• continue to test twice weekly over the Easter holidays
• test before returning to school for the summer term, either the night before, or morning of, the first day back, to find and isolate any positive cases

The testing instructions are also available in 

• Arabic
• Bengali
• Chinese (simplified)
• Gujarati
• Polish
• Punjabi (Gurmukhi script)
• Romanian
• Somali
• Turkish
• Urdu
• Welsh

The video below shows you how to do the test, or for a more 'familiar' version, Ilyeh has again starred in a video your child will find helpful!

if you have any questions, please contact us on the usual numbers.

Sufra Food Bank
Woodfield is also a referrer to Sufra Foodbank. A charity that provides support to vulnerable families in need of additional help. They provide essential food and toiletries to families experiencing an acute crisis. The size of their food parcels depends on the size of the family that needs support but typically last between 5 to 7 days.  They also offer other support such as:

• Community kitchen - hot meals being delivered to those without cooking facilities as well as the elderly and isolated.
• Advice services & refugee support
• NHS Emergency Food Aid Service - food packs for patients
• Community garden

This is a confidential service and any referral will be treated with strict privacy within the school. If you would like to discuss further, please contact Patsy.

Annual Reviews of EHC Plans
Annual reviews, in the current circumstances, need to take a different form. A review meeting, even if by necessity briefer than usual, can be carried out as advised by the Coronavirus Act 2020 for the Secretary of State for Education. due to the need to assign some staff from working on annual reviews to delivering the rapid testing program, the timeframe for delivering annual reviews may be adjusted. You will be well informed of any changes.

In order to complete the Annual Reviews of EHC Plans this academic year, Woodfield School will conduct reviews, virtually or over the telephone rather than face-to-face where this can be done following the guidance on reducing transmissions of coronavirus (COVI-19). Therefore parents or carers will not be invited into school for a review meeting. 

An invitation e-letter will be sent out with more details as your child's' review approaches. (Please note that the Local Authorities have stated there is a backlog with amending ECHP’s). We will be happy to chase it up for you but just so you know ultimately it is the Local Authority who updates the EHCP. You will be entitled to a draft copy of all reports. 

Please note; we have a change in our GDPR policy as to how we send review paperwork of your child to you. We will no longer send reports to parents’ personal email accounts. As of September 2020, we will only use your child’s email set for all correspondences for Annual Reviews. This encourages access to knowledge and sharing of information in a safe and controlled way from us to you.

Should you have any questions or concerns, please email on wf-senreviews@compasslp.co.uk or contact the school and speak with the SEN Administrator who will be more than happy to support you. 

Proposed dates for reviews:
Autumn Term 2020 - Oct -Dec  (Year 14, 13 and 9)
Spring Term 2021 - Jan - April (Year 9, 13, 12, 11 and 10 )
Summer Term 2021 - May- July (Year 10, 8 and 7)

Assistance from local councils
Local councils have set up guides for residents with regard to how to access a range of assistance over this time, be it medical, financial, business or even how to volunteer to assist others.

You can view these offerings from local councils by clicking the links below.

Brent
Barnet
Harrow
Ealing
Camden
Westminster

Have a good weekend


Nick Cooper

Important dates

Term dates are subject to change, parents and carers will be informed of any changes.
 

If you would like hard copies (paper) of any document on our website, please contact the school office and they will arrange this
.