Good afternoon,

As the second week of the Spring Term comes to an end, following Brexit, snow and lockdown; I would like us to have faith, hope and love, as the rollout of the vaccine starts to take place so that we can protect as many people as possible and return to some normality in the near future.

Once again, I feel truly blessed for the incredible families and team I have working at St Ambrose School and all they do for each and every one of our children. Please continue working together to protect our children, staff and families.

I am sad to inform you that Mrs Cull, who was a much loved cleaner for many years at Saint Ambrose, has passed away. Mrs Cull was respected by all staff and we would like you to remember her in your prayers.

Our remote learning arrangements are reliant on children having access to appropriate IT devices at home. Please contact the school office if you would like us to provide you with an appropriate device.The Government has issued information regarding data and routers available to support pupils who are struggling to get onto the remote lessons due to not having access to the internet. If you require more data or a wireless router please contact the school office.We will then register the pupils that require further support with the DfE and obtain the extra data or routers. Next week staff will share with all children a code of conduct to follow when using Teams.

Thank you for your feedback this week, it has informed the tutorials we have filmed to support remote learning. Miss Ballard has now uploaded the following tutorials on the class pages (see link below):

1. Uploading work to Purple Mash

2. Accessing scheduled lessons on Teams

3. Access Microsoft Teams via Playstation 4

4. Access Microsoft Teams via Playstation 5

If you would be interested in attending a live question and answers session for parents led by Miss Ballard, please contact the school office.

https://st-ambrose.sch.life/Page/Category/class-pages

We are delighted that Mr Garvey, one of our sports coaches has launched a fitness programme, which can help children at home.

It is aimed at getting children focused, alert and ready for a productive day of home learning!

We hope you can take part on a Tuesday and Thursday as part of the children's P.E. daily lessons.

A huge thank you to Mr Garvey for filming the sessions. You can access the sessions via the class pages.

This week in Year 6, we have been busy learning about how to simplify fractions by using common factors and used common multiples to express fractions in the same denomination. Then we worked on placing missing fractions on a number line and finding missing numbers in a fractional sequence. These are tricky concepts but all the children worked really hard on mastering this skill.
On Wednesday afternoon, we finished our topic about World War II by learning about the atrocities of the holocaust. Below are some examples of the wonderful work our children completed at home or in school.

We were also challenged this week, in an RE lesson with Miss Holtom, to think about what we would say to someone who didn't know who Jesus was. We could present our work in a way of our choosing but we had to be creative. Miss Holtom was really impressed with the results!

Year 3 have been working really hard since lockdown to keep our learning as normal as possible!  We have learnt about St Francis of Assisi and written about the shepherds visiting baby Jesus.  We have thought about our maths in lots of different ways, and we have even been doing proper English lessons!  Miss Ballard and Mrs Baylie have been so impressed with how sensible children have been on their Teams calls, and they are excited for next week's learning!

On Tuesday, it is one of our new house saint's feast day: St Wulstan. We will be celebrating this in school and via remote learning by asking children to take part in a 'design your own Catholic Church challenge'. This is because St Wulstan believed that country people should have the opportunity to go to Mass so he encouraged the building of churches on rural manors. There will be prizes for the best entries - children will be asked to upload their work to a 2Do on purplemash. We will also be asking children to do one of the following activities in the afternoon: bake something and decorate it in 'red' e.g. cupcakes, go on a walk and see how many things you can spot that are red, create a stained glass window drawing inspired by St Wulstan or create a fact-file about him. And finally, as red is our St Wulstan's house colour, we would also like all children to wear something red to mark this special feast day in the life of our school.

Your child should have received a letter explaining about registering for ParentPay. This is a service that will allow you to make secure online payments to school for trips, mufti days, music lessons etc. The letter contains your unique login details for your child/children. Please can we ask that you access this and speak to the school office if you have any issues.

Latest update on testing and isolation periods.

• If a child or member of staff tests positive, they now have to self-isolate for at least 10 days, even if they feel well.
• If they are NOT a known contact of a confirmed case they can return to school if the result is negative, providing they feel well and they have not had a fever for 48 hours.
• If they are a contact of a confirmed case, they must stay off school for 14 days isolation period, even if they test negative. This is because they can develop the infection at any point up to 14 days after being in contact a confirmed case. This would apply to pupils and staff who have been in a bubble with a positive testing child.  School Leadership will decide which members of staff have come into close proximity with the bubble and therefore also need to self-isolate for 14 days.
• Please be aware that anyone admitted to hospital is likely to receive a test for Covid, whether they are showing symptoms or not.  
• Covid symptoms are now being classed as: a persistent cough, high temperature, and/or loss of taste and smell.
• No action needs to be taken as a school until a test result is shared with us.

Please also note that we cannot request test results, parents have to approach us with results.

As we are unable to hold face to face meetings between teacher and parents we have set up year group email addresses for you to communicate with staff. Please note that emails received after 6pm will be answered the next working day and none over the weekend.

General enquiries: office@st-ambrose.worcs.sch.uk

Reception: Reception@st-ambrose.worcs.sch.uk

Year 1: year1@st-ambrose.worcs.sch.uk

Year 2: year2@st-ambrose.worcs.sch.uk

Year 3: year3@st-ambrose.worcs.sch.uk

Year 4: year4@st-ambrose.worcs.sch.uk

Year 5: year5@st-ambrose.worcs.sch.uk

Year 6: year6@st-ambrose.worcs.sch.uk

Today is the last day to submit for applications for a place for your child in Reception for the September 2021 intake. Please follow the link below if you are still yet to apply for a place for your son/daughter.

Kind regards,

Mrs Brocklesby.