Dear Families

I have received confirmation that Free School Meals Vouchers for the February half term (w/c 15th February) will be funded by the Government and distributed by us in the same way they were over Christmas. Therefore, each qualifying family will receive a £20 evoucher per child before half term.

Please note that prior to half term the DfE are funding these vouchers and are using Edenred. After half term we will return to using Edenred. All qualifying families should have received their first email today. I can see many have already redeemed theirs, please check you ‘spam’ folder if you have not received yours.

As always, do not hesitate to get in touch if you need any help

Mrs Raine

Dear families,

Hopefully, this message finds you well – I just wanted to share a few updates with you all.

Conducting ‘Safe and Well’ checks

As part of our remote learning strategy, we have tasked staff to contact families weekly to ensure they are safe and well. As part of this approach, we would expect to speak to children to ensure that they are alright, this is a requirement of the safeguarding process put in place by the government since lock down.

If we cannot get in touch with families and/or speak with children, we may conduct a ‘safe and well check’, which would involve two members of our Senior Leadership Team calling to your home to make sure you are all ok.

Teams Meetings

Our staff are working hard in school to try and develop and improve our remote learning strategy. One aspect of this is through a greater use of Microsoft Teams meetings. As you can imagine with technology, things don’t always work as smoothly as we would like, so please bear with us when we iron out these issues.

An update from our community partners

We are in regular contact with Public Health England, our local NHS and the Police – they have asked me to remind everyone of the importance of following the rules regarding the National Lock down. It is imperative that we all do our bit and follow the rules. I am very aware that the local NHS are under huge pressure in terms of capacity, indeed we are aware of several families who have been directly affected by COVID; our thoughts and prayers are very much with them at this difficult time.

Following on from this, I must emphasise the need for those families who are currently school places that they continue to follow the government rules. I have a duty of care to all my staff and the children to ensure that school remains as safe as possible. I do not want to be in a position where I must refuse a child a place in school whose family are flouting the National lock down – I do know that this has happened at other schools.  Should children inform us that they are doing so, I will be left with no choice.

Parental support

Finally, can I just say a huge thank you to you all for your constant support and understanding at this difficult time. I have been heartened by the support of our families and have had the pleasure on many occasions of passing on thanks to individual teachers as parents have contacted us to share their thanks.

Please do keep safe and let us know of any difficulties.

Kind regards

Mr Dixon

Head Teacher

Dear Families,

As previously informed, from next week (Monday 25th January), we will be providing DfE FSM vouchers to families who are entitled to free school meals.

Our families will receive email vouchers as follows:

w/c Monday 25th January – £30 voucher per child which covers two weeks (£15 per child per week).

w/c Monday 8th February – £15 voucher per child which covers one week.

w/c Monday 15th February – TO BE CONFIRMED. The Government are yet to provide information regarding how they will support families over the half term week. It is anticipated they will use the same system as they did over Christmas.

w/c Monday 22nd February – Should we still only be open to families of only critical workers and vulnerable children we will return to providing Edenred vouchers on a two week basis.

We will issue these vouchers to the same email addresses we used over Christmas. If your email address has changed, please inform us ASAP.

Take care

Mrs Raine

School Operations Manager

Dear families

We want to ask that you and your children look out for special surprise postcards home during this lock down. Teachers will choose children from this class each week to reward with a postcard home…

These postcards are for children either in school or learning at home in recognition for amazing work.

Things the teachers are looking for include:

Hard work and effort, producing and submitting outstanding work, regularly accessing and completing work, the use of initiative in using their own emails to contact staff and submit work.

Our first batch went out in the post today…good luck everyone

CJS team

If you have school meals or breakfast club credit on Parentpay I will be processing refunds to your ParentPay account over the weekend. It is quite a time consuming task so please bear with me!

Refunds we make on Parentpay do not necessarily automatically go back into your bank account, you will need to log in and manually transfer it. It is an easy process to do and only takes a minute, but should you need help, please email me.

Likewise, should your child’s account be in arrears could I kindly request that you also pay money owed.

Have a lovely weekend
Mrs Raine

Dear families

If you are entitled to Free School Meals you will be aware of the voucher scheme(s) the Government have previously provided. Since the recent lockdown was announced we have offered packed lunches and more recently, food hampers to qualifying families.

We have now been informed that the voucher scheme that was used last year (Edenred) will soon be available again. It is down to the school to decide which option we offer families, i.e. packed lunches, hampers or vouchers. We have chosen to offer vouchers as we have done previously. This will start w/c 25th January. We have chosen this option as we feel it is more convenient than the alternatives. Please note, if you have previously requested food hampers the delivery w/c 18th January will still be processed as it is too late to change.

Once the Edenred system is up and running I will be applying for vouchers of FSM families who are not currently attending school. These vouchers will be delivered to your email and will cover a two week period, therefore £15 per week per child delivered in one ecode. Therefore, families with more than one child in our school will get one combined code to cover the two week period with all their children’s amounts added together.

For families familiar with Edenred, you may well be in agreement with me when I say that there were several issues in the processing of them last year, I hope that it will be an easier process this time round.

Vouchers will only be paid to families if their children are not currently in school, FSM children in school have access to meals from our kitchen.

Edenred are the voucher providers for ‘term time’ only; we are still waiting to find out who/how vouchers will be paid to families in the February half term.

I will be using the email addresses that the Winter Vouchers were emailed too, so if your email has changed since Christmas then please let me know. If your details are still the same you do not need to do anything or contact me, I will do it all for you.

If you feel your circumstances have changed and are now entitled to FSM, please contact me on the email below.

Take care

Mrs Raine

consettjunior@durhamlearning.net

https://www.consett-jun.durham.sch.uk/fsm-vouchers/

 

 

 

Dear families, school is open today for children who currently attend (critical and vulnerable). Main roads are generally fine, but take care on paths and side roads. If your child is unable to attend or you feel it unsafe to travel please ensure you contact the school in the usual ways.

Take care CJS

Dear families, we just wanted to give a quick update in terms of the school closure today. Obviously, we have had a fair amount of snow over the course of the day. Whilst this is due to stop, the evening will be cold and below freezing. We will make a judgement in the morning and inform of our decision early. Our priority is the safety of the children, families and staff.

Well done to all the children who have completed their remote learning tasks today, there has also been excellent work submitted via year group emails, once again, we are impressed at the children who have been using their own 365 email accounts to communicate with school staff.

CJS

Dear families of children currently attending school. Due to adverse weather conditions school will be closed today. Online learning will be offered for ALL children and monitored by staff. Please take care if you do need to go out, as side roads are impassible with more snowfall due.

We will alert families regarding tomorrow once we are able to. Take care CJS.

As previously informed, staff are setting up Teams meetings. As all children have Office 365 log in’s they can all access Teams to participate. Initially we will put reminders on the calendar of our school app. However, as they become more frequent/weekly, children are expected to check their Teams calendar to ensure they know when their next meeting is.

How to access a meeting?

Google Office 365
Use your child’s email and password to login.
On the left – hand side of the screen click on the teams app.
Click on your child’s class when it appears on the screen.
At the bottom of the next page, it should say join meeting. Click this at the time of the scheduled meeting.

Take care
CJS Team