COVID-19 Latest
UPDATE FOR PARENTS MONDAY 30TH MARCH 2020:
Thank you for your continued superb support and engagement with us during the school’s closure.
Today, some resources for you from partner agencies and colleges – let us know if you find any of these particularly useful:
‘Covid-19: Supporting Education and Safeguarding Children’ – Hampshire Police March 2020
Hampshire Police have produced a dedicated ‘Covid-19: Supporting Education and Safeguarding Children’ page on their Safe4me website, sharing information, articles and resources they think may be useful to support school staff, partners, parents/carers and young people themselves during this difficult time. Here is the webpage:
https://www.safe4me.co.uk/2020/03/26/covid-19-supporting-education-and-safeguarding/
Summary of content and links (with thanks to Mrs Sullivan, Citizenship Lead, for summarising for us):
1. Concerns for the Safety and Welfare of a Child- Reporting Safeguarding Concerns
Southampton- https://www.southampton.gov.uk/health-social-care/children/child-social-care/child-protection.aspx
Hampshire- https://www.hants.gov.uk/socialcareandhealth/childrenandfamilies/contacts
2. Domestic Abuse- where to get help during the pandemic
https://www.safe4me.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/Covid_19-DA-Advice-Leaflet-A4-BW.pdf
3. Advice during Coronavirus Pandemic
https://www.doctorsoftheworld.org.uk/coronavirus-information/
4. Mental Health during Isolation & Lockdown
a. https://youthworksupport.co.uk/ is designed to bring together relevant advice, guidance, support and tools for youth workers, young people and organisations during the COVID 19 pandemic. You will be able to find resources to help you and young people keep calm, stay connected and be safe. Each area has downloadable resources and links to other useful sites.
b. Supporting young peoples’ mental health: https://www.annafreud.org/what-we-do/anna-freud-learning-network/coronavirus/
c. Parent Zone is an expert consultancy in digital family life, responding to the global challenges of the digital age. We empower young people, parents and professionals to build the skillsets needed to analyse and deal with challenges they face. Looking at issues such as bullying, body image, mental health and extremism, we also act as innovators, developing new research and ideas for global influencers and select corporate partners.
https://parentzone.org.uk/parent-info
d. Keep Calm, Stay Connected, Be Safe advice from National Youth Work Organisation
https://youthworksupport.co.uk/
5. Remote Teaching Resources & Advice
a. ParentZone are offering 3-month FREE membership to their Digital Resilience Programme Membership which offers resources for parents, plus unlimited access to the Parent Lounge, which is a specialist area just for parents packed full of resources to help families boost children’s digital resilience and keep them safer online. This is for parents/carers to stay engaged and connected, to support them through school-closure. One article which may be of particular value at the moment is’ Helping Teens Cope with Lockdown’
https://parentzone.org.uk/membership/digital-resilience-membership
b. Safe4me Toolkits: If educating children and young people remotely; consider the activities and resources in our toolkits and partner links on safety topics such as county lines, knife crime, online safety, sending nudes, antisocial behaviour and ‘Just for Fun’ activity book for younger children. https://www.safe4me.co.uk/parents/
c. Oursaferschools.co.uk: This site has lots of resources for primary and secondary level children, covering a range of themes from how to discuss the virus with your child to a timetable for you to adapt, to resources on helping in the community and online safety. Option to sign up for their free newsletter.
d. CEOP-ThinkUknow: This is an education programme from NCA-CEOP, a UK organisation to protect children online and offline. It provides individual websites specifically for children, parents and professionals with advice and activities about staying safe online. The parent section has added new activity packs with 15 minute activities to do with your child to support home-learning about keeping safe online when spending more time online whilst isolated and not in school.
6. Free Online Course: Introduction to Infection Prevention & Control
7. Covid-19 Fraud & Scam Prevention Advice
https://www.safe4me.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/58279_Covid_19_fraud_prevent_release_v8.pdf
8. Invitation for YP to follow Police UK on Instagram: Young people age 13+ can follow the national police team on Instagram to receive regular posts, information and videos on a range of safety topics (includes Covid-19 info/video), option to direct message police with questions and get a reply. https://www.instagram.com/police.uk.insta/
9. Details of support services and websites
- Childline: service for children worried about abuse and harm
https://www.childline.org.uk/get-support/ - Fearless: service for 11-17 years to report crime anonymously https://www.fearless.org/
Children should also be advised they can contact Hampshire Police: call 101 for non-emergency matters or report online – call 999 in an emergency.
10. Support for Parents & Carers
a. https://www.thinkuknow.co.uk/
– The links provided aim to support families with managing isolation, well-being, home-education and behaviour – they include a colourful activity worksheet for younger children which explores a virus and their feelings, and new 15 minute online safety activity packs from ThinkUknow.
b. https://www.familylives.org.uk/ – lots of advice and guidelines for helping families get through this time.
c. https://parentinfo.org/ – Advice for families in self isolation: coping practically and emotionally during the Covid-19 outbreak, including family tensions, managing children’s behaviour and ideas for family activities. Formed by Parent Zone and NCA-CEOP, providing support and guidance for parents on a whole range of topics which currently include articles advising parents about:
- Looking after their family’s mental health when stuck indoors
- Managing children’s screen time
- Coping with their child being bullied online
- Tips for starting the difficult Coronavirus conversation with children
- Free subscription offer
Webinar offer- Helping your teenager with anxiety – from a colleague we work with in school:
Stacey Miller is a mentor/coach who has worked with young people in our school and who is working with us to plan a Mental Health and Wellbeing Conference for November – all being well – following very successful ones in other parts of Hampshire.
She is running a webinar – Helping your teenager with anxiety (for parents) – Tuesday 31st March at 12 and then again on Thursday 2nd April at 4 for an hour in each case at a cost of £10. If this is of interest to you, sign up at:
www.staceymillerconsultancy.co.uk/webinars
Year 11: Updates from Colleges and VESPA:
If your Y11 son/daughter applied to Richard Taunton Sixth Form College, they should have received the information below:
This link includes a letter from the college and useful answers to key questions.
And we received a copy of what is below that they will have received if they have applied to Brockenhurst College:
Dear applicant
Following the government’s announcement to close schools from Friday 20th March and the cancellation of GCSE examinations this summer, I wanted to reassure you that there will be a place for you at Brockenhurst College for the next academic year.
As I am sure you are aware, at this stage we do not know exactly how the government intends to award qualifications. However, we will work with your school and examining bodies to ensure you are not disadvantaged next year.
I know you will be extremely disappointed that you will not be able to take your exams that you have worked so hard for over the last two years.
In addition, I understand from your schools, that many of you are keen to get started on your sixth form courses. In order for you to get ahead of the game, we will be uploading pre-reading and pre-course materials and activities to our website. This will take place over the next week or so and once we have got everything ready we will be in touch with the link.
Finally, we are still hoping to run Freshers’ Day on 25 June. Naturally with the current uncertainty surrounding the COVID-19 outbreak, we will let you know closer to the time if this date is to go ahead.
If you have any questions or queries, please contact admissions@brock.ac.uk
We have also received the following information from Barton Peverill College:
Students with Conditional Offers
All students who have had their interview and received a conditional offer have been contacted and reassured that their offer of a place to study will be honoured.
These students will be invited into College for an Enrolment Interview in late August, when we will offer advice on subject choices.
Applicants Awaiting Interview
Students that have applied to Barton Peveril, but who have not had an interview, will be contacted to arrange a phone interview with the College.
All applicants can contact us via email enquiries@barton.ac.uk and our services and support are still available to them – Year 11 will also be receiving a letter with this and additional information about enrolment in it.
You will notice that Brock mention providing reading lists and pre-course work pretty soon and I am sure the other colleges will be considering this, too – we will pass this info to you and to your sons/daughters via the portal in due course.
Second VESPA Questionnaire:
Can you give your son/daughter a nudge that they have been sent the link to the second VESPA questionnaire. The aim of this questionnaire is to help them study effectively (in whatever form that may take in the future) and to manage workload as well as possible.
To take the questionnaire, they need to:
- Go to emails. They have all been sent a school code (called an Establishment Code) and a Unique Access Code. They should click on the VESPA link sent in this email and make sure they insert the correct codes.
- The questionnaire should take about 15 minutes to complete, and allows them to assess current mindset and will provide you with a score out of 10 for each aspect of the VESPA scale (Vision, Effort, Systems, Practice and Attitude.
We continue to have it on good authority that information will come our way by the end of this week from Ofqual and the exam boards regarding the process by which assessment information will be gathered and returned to them – we will issue an update as soon as we can do so accurately for you.
Keeping in touch:
Keep in touch in any way that you need to, including at headteacher@noadswood.hants.sch.uk and remember, we will and must reach out to you and your children in a whole host of ways – but you choose the ways that help and support you with their learning and wellbeing (and your own).
A new addition to our support commences Tuesday 31st March and will be available each school day between the hours of 10am and 12 noon: it’s a dedicated phone number 07946 884 122 that you or your child can call to speak with Assistant Head, Mrs Loveday, regarding any wellbeing/keeping safe worries or questions you may have. We know lots of you and your children are checking in with a range of us, and so there is no need to add making use of this service to a ‘to do’ list, but it is there for anyone who’d benefit from a conversation of that kind now or on any school day in the future – we’re calling it, Loveday’s Lifeline! We hope you enjoy the name!
Never feel obliged and compelled to engage to the same extent with everything we’re offering or to do the same every day/week. It’s all about what works as well as possible for you, and we get that 100%.
And in that spirit, enjoy this Coping Calendar:
With our best wishes, and in this together,
Kathryn Marshall and Noadswood School Leadership Team
