Please remember our message from last week: it is tricky teaching your own children, don’t put too much pressure on yourselves or them.

Our activities are coming through each day to help you and give you a focus but the most important thing at the moment is that you spend time with your child to reassure them and you create positive memories.

We’ve sent home lots of ideas like cake baking, game playing and reading that are less pressured but just as valuable at this time.

Take care all.  Mrs M x

Miss Hardy will be reading a Chapter of ‘The Girl Who Stole an Elephant’ live on Facebook at 5pm each day.  You can read along if you have a copy or download a copy or you can just listen!

She is starting from Chapter 6 (as 5H have already read this far) but she will fill you in on the first 5 chapters before she starts this afternoon.

Come on NJS, I want to hear your applause around Newport tonight.

Telford and Wrekin have been amazing delivering meals this week: we work with some wonderful teams.

Update from them:

We continue to deliver Free School Meals to those who children who are eligible around the borough.

Thank you for everyone’s positivity and understanding yesterday as we try and get the logistics in place to support families in our local community.

First of all we would just like to remind everyone that these meals are for only those who are eligible for a Free School Meal due to their financial circumstances.

They are NOT the Universal Free School Meals which your child may receive on a usual school day if they are in reception, year 1 or year 2.

You can check if you are entitled based on your income here: https://www.telford.gov.uk/…/school_m…/9/free_school_meals/2

To ensure we get this system running as smoothly as possible in the current situation we’d like to remind people:

▶️Please wait until 2.30pm to report if a meal has not been received.

▶️If you sent us a Facebook message, voicemail or email yesterday please note our team are picking these up you do not need to contact us again about the same issue.

▶️Report any new issues you may have (i.e. missing meal, change of address) via email on freeschoolmeals@telford.gov.uk. Please provide us with your name, the name of your child who is eligible, your telephone number and address, and your child’s school.

▶️If you do need to call us and you leave a voice mail please leave as much detail as possible so we can act quickly based on the information you have provided. We are trying to avoid making call backs where possible to save time.

▶️This is a momentous task delivering over 5,000 meals each day therefore we are not accepting menu or meal requests other than dietary requirements. Our priority is to ensure that all child who are entitled receive their food.

▶️If your financial situation is changing and you feel you may now qualify for a free school meal based on your income you can read the criteria and apply here: https://www.telford.gov.uk/…/school_m…/9/free_school_meals/2

Thank you again for your support – it really does help the teams behind the scenes.

Please find a link to a newsround article: https://www.bbc.co.uk/newsround/52008734

I thought this may be a lovely thing to do with your children.  Perhaps use it as an opportunity to reassure your child that at this challenging time we have lots of people who are working incredibly hard to help us.  We can’t see people to thank them but small gestures like this ‘make a difference’ and bring community together.

I look forward to hearing applause around Newport on Thursday evening (26th March) at 8pm.

Thinking of you all.  Mrs M x

If you aren’t receiving emails please check daily on the class pages https://newportjuniorschool.org.uk/home/parents-area/classes/

Parents have also complained about printing: I have asked staff to design activities that do not involve printing.  Children should be able to work from the slides into their book/on paper.  Your children will be used to doing this in school.

Staff are doing their very best to keep these coming out to you and to try to support you.  This will not be a perfect system, we have never done it before and we are all doing our very best in difficult times.

Thank you for your support.