Latest News | Clare Mount Specialist Sports College

Look after your family's health during this difficult time!

Fri 20 Mar 2020 Kevin Byrne

We appreciate the enormous challenge that our families face over the coming weeks. We have compiled a short list of useful websites that we encourage you to research; especially if you have any concerns about your mental health and emotional wellbeing.

Please stay safe and remember that key staff will be available at school for as long as the school remains open if you need to talk!

Childline 0800 1111

https://www.childline.org.uk/

A friendly and useful description of the virus via a social story:

https://www.autism.org.uk/services/helplines/coronavirus.aspx

The Department of Education (DFE) Questions and answers on providing services to Children with disabilities during the coronavirus Disease 2019 outbreak

The Parent/Caregiver Guide to Helping Families Cope With the Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) from the National Child Traumatic Stress Network includes age-specific tips for helping children cope with stress

Supporting Families During COVID-19

https://childmind.org/coping-during-covid-19-resources-for-parents/

Free, safe and anonymous online support for young people https://www.kooth.com/

Young Minds: www.youngminds.org.uk Parents’ helpline for parents / carers worried about their children’s mental health: 0808 802 5544

The Anna Freud Centre: https://www.annafreud.org/what-we-do/our-help-for-children-and-families/looking-for-help-parents-and-carers/

Coranavirus / COVID-19 Update Letter for Parents / Carers Friday 20th March 2020

Fri 20 Mar 2020 Kevin Byrne

An update letter for our families will be distributed this afternoon. The content of this letter is below.

Many thanks!

20th March 2020

Dear Parent / Carer,

As this week has progressed, we have found it increasingly difficult to continue to operate as normal, as illness and self-isolation impacts on our staffing levels and student attendance. This is a similar picture in schools up and down the country.

As you will be aware, the government has now announced that schools will be closed to everyone from Monday as part of the country’s response to minimise the spread of Coronavirus by restricting social contact. Exceptions may include children of ‘key-workers’, vulnerable children and those that have EHCPs.

Many of our families have already self-isolated, others have kept students at home as they have been highly anxious coming into school with reduced numbers and different staffing.

Staff have prepared booklets and work folders for those that are not attending at present and will be sending these home to enable students staying at home to complete if they wish. Work at Home Activities are also being put on our website. Look under the ‘About our Curriculum’ heading for all the different Subjects. Please also look at each Subject’s Spectrum Steps to see progression throughout the years. Heads of Departments are regularly updating their sites.

As advised by the government, next week Clare Mount Specialist Sports College will do all we can to stay open. This will be with a skeleton staff on a revised timetable, for the children whose parents/carers are unable to have them at home.

This is as much as we know at the moment and we appreciate your continued patience as we deal with this ever-changing situation. We understand that this will have an impact on you and your family and it’s far from ideal but this is a national emergency. We will continue to keep in touch with any updates as the situation develops via the school website and our social media outlets (Twitter: @ClareMountSSC and Instagram: @ClareMountSSC)

It is important that you continue to follow advice on self-isolation if any members of your family show symptoms. You must maintain the full 14-day period of isolation and ensure that children are not sent back into school before this.

Current guidance from the Department of Education states that Special Schools are to make case by case assessments of the Health and Safeguarding considerations of students on an EHCP. For most; they will be safer at home. One of the reasons for keeping your child at home is to reduce the spread of the virus as much as possible by reducing the numbers of children and staff in school to a minimum.

Please inform us as soon as possible via school office email (or phone if no email) if you intend to send your child into school next week to enable us to arrange staffing accordingly.

I know that these are uncertain times, the situation is changing daily, but I want to reassure you we are adapting our plans and making sure we can put the best care and support in place for all our students and staff.

This is such a challenging time for all of us and we wish you and your families good health in the difficult weeks ahead.

Yours sincerely

Mrs K Webster

Headteacher

Help with limiting screen time while working at home

Thu 19 Mar 2020 KB

Dear parents / carers,

During any long period away from school it is understandable that you may be a bit concerned about 'screen-time' and any detrimenta effect this may have. Read on for some advice and guidance:

Your child’s screen time If there’s a school closure or self-isolation due to coronavirus (COVID-19), your child will likely be spending more time on devices than usual, especially if doing remote learning.

Know the risks, and what you can do to keep your child safe.

What’s the problem?

Spending time online and on devices can be a positive thing. But, higher screen time can put your child more at risk of:

Being bullied online
Abuse and grooming (when someone builds a relationship with a child to exploit or abuse them)
Seeing inappropriate content
Not getting enough sleep and exercise

5 steps you can take to protect your child

1) Set parental controls on devices Use parental controls to restrict access to in-app purchases and explicit or age-rated content, and, on some devices, how long they can spend on the device. You’ll likely need to set a password. Make sure it’s different from the password used to access the device, and that your child doesn’t know it. Parental controls are usually located under ‘Settings’. See below for more detailed instructions for different devices.

2) Make sure they’re doing school work when they should be Try to keep an eye on what they’re up to on devices during school time – make sure they’re actually using them for any work they’ve been set. Some virus protection software packages include monitoring features, so check to see if yours has this. You can also buy standalone monitoring apps. See this guide for more: https://www.internetmatters.org/resources/monitoring-apps-parents-guide/

3) Talk to your child about staying safe online Tell them: They should only talk to people they know and trust in real life – anyone can pretend to be a child online If they do talk to people they don’t know, don’t give away personal information – like what street they live on or where they go to school, or share their location with them. Say no to any requests they get for images or videos, and stop talking to the other person

3) Set their profiles to private, to limit what others can see Be ‘share aware’ – think carefully about what they share and with who. Once it’s out there, they’ve got no control over what the other person does with it.

Read this advice from the NSPCC: https://www.nspcc.org.uk/keeping-children-safe/onlinesafety/talking-child-online-safety

4) Agree rules on screen time There’s no recommended ‘safe’ amount of screen time, but you should try to avoid screens an hour before bedtime. Agree some limits to stop screen time interfering with your child’s sleep or family activities:

Make a plan together, and stick to it. You could set media-free times and zones, like during meals or in bedrooms Model the behaviour you want to see – which may mean no screen time for you at the times agreed with your child. Children are more likely to learn from example

Try to minimise snacking during screen time Turn not using screens into a game, using apps like Forest, where not using devices is rewarded

5) Encourage off-screen activities Get your child active for the recommended 60 minutes a day:  See www.nhs.uk/change4life/activities for free ideas for activities and games

Try an app that’s designed to get children active – see the examples at www.internetmatters.org/resources/apps-guide/apps-to-help-kids-get-active/

Build in screen breaks if they’re doing school work at home. 5 to 10 minutes every hour should help. They could take a break to get a drink of water, look out of the window for a few minutes, or do some easy exercises like neck rotations and forward bends

Develop your child’s communication and reading skills with the activities (for 0 to 5 year-olds) recommended here: https://hungrylittleminds.campaign.gov.uk

This factsheet was produced by Safeguarding Training Centre from The Key: www.thekeysupport.com/safeguarding Manage devices, apps & screen time, Google for Families Help https://support.google.com/families/topic/7336331?hl=en&ref_topic=6149867 Should visual display unit (VDU) users be given breaks?, HSE https://www.hse.gov.uk/contact/faqs/vdubreaks.htm Guidelines issued on activity and screen time for babies and toddlers, NHS https://www.nhs.uk/news/pregnancy-and-child/who-guidelines-screen-time/ Physical activity guidelines for children and young people, NHS https://www.nhs.uk/live-well/exercise/physical-activity-guidelines-children-and-young-people/ Share Aware resources for schools and teachers, NSPCC Learning (scroll down to the parent’s leaflet in the grey box) https://learning.nspcc.org.uk/research-resources/schools/share-aware-teaching/ The health impacts of screen time: a guide for clinicians and parents, Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health https://www.rcpch.ac.uk/resources/health-impacts-screen-time-guide-clinicians-parents Sexting in schools and colleges, UK Council for Internet Safety https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/sexting-in-schools-and-colleges

Home Learning Resources for Years 7 and 8

Thu 19 Mar 2020 LGr

Dear parents and carers,

As you know, we are working to ensure that you have plenty of ideas to keep your children learning while they are unable to attend school. Below, you will find links to some brilliant websites for maths, science, reading and keeping active!

Enjoy and keep learning!

Coronavirus update and school plan

Thu 19 Mar 2020 SO

Dear parents/carers,

As you’re probably aware, the government’s guidance on the coronavirus has changed from the ‘contain’ phase to one of delaying the spread of the virus. We’re getting in touch to let you know what we’re doing in light of this, and what we expect from all of you, to help make sure our school community keeps safe and calm.

We’d like to reassure you that at Clare Mount Specialist Sports College we’re taking all of the necessary steps to protect our community and are continuing to follow official guidance from the government, Public Health England (PHE) and our Local Authority

What’s the current situation?

As you will be aware, the government has now announced that schools will be closed to everyone
from Monday as part of the country’s response to minimise the spread of Coronavirus by restricting
social contact. Exceptions may include children of ‘key workers’, vulnerable children and those that
have EHCPs.
Tomorrow (Friday) all families will receive a letter outlining our full position as we endeavour to offer a school service to those who need it.
Pupils should continue to attend this week unless they feel unwell – if your child has any of the following symptoms they should remain at home for 14 days:
A new, continuous cough and/or
A high temperature
Pupils should also remain at home for 14 days if anyone they live with has the above symptoms
If your child is unwell or is self-isolating, report this as you would normally by contacting the school as soon as the illness begins
All trips are cancelled until further notice. Pupils will remain in school.
We’ll keep you up to date with any changes to the current situation

What we’re doing to protect and support pupils and staff

If a pupils is showing any sign of the above symptoms whilst in school, they will be sent home and asked to follow medical guidelines
Lessons or assemblies for pupils about hygiene and how to deal with anxiety

What we need you to do

If you’ve recently changed your contact details, please inform the school office as soon as possible via email/telephone
Talk to your children about the coronavirus. It’s a scary time and we should make sure children feel supported. BBC Newsround has regular updates for younger children and YoungMinds has practical steps older children can take to help with anxiety
Come and collect your child straight away, if we ask you to (we’ll contact you if they become ill with either a temperature or a new, continuous cough)

What happens if the school has to close?

We’ll only close if we’re either officially advised to do so or we don’t have enough staff to run the school.

In either case, we’ll:

Send parents/carers a text and post information on our website
When we are to re-open parents/carers will be informed by text and a post on our website

If you have any questions

Please consult the:

School office, if you have any questions about our response to this issue
NHS, if you want to know more about the symptoms of coronavirus. If you think you or your child may have the symptoms, use NHS 111 online if at all possible before calling 111
Department for Education’s coronavirus helpline: 0800 046 8687, if you have any questions about the government’s response to coronavirus in relation to schools
Government’s travel advice, if you want to know whether any upcoming trip or holiday you’re taking abroad should go ahead

It’s a tricky time and we know you’re worried about the impact this might have on our community. It’s important we keep each other safe and talk about these events to help with any anxiety.

Thank you for your continued support.

Kim Webster

Headteacher

CANCELLED KS4 & KS5 Parents'/ Carers' Evening 19.03.20

Mon 16 Mar 2020

6th form preparing for adulthood

Fri 13 Mar 2020 C. Vicars

Students took part in a very active lesson this morning. They were using a range of drama warm up activities to develop their communication skills, eye contact, turn taking and extending initial ideas. All of these skills are so important as they prepare for adulthood and get ready for the world of work or college, which is a huge part of Clare Mount 6th Form.

Students Learn About the Power of Expressive Arts

Thu 12 Mar 2020 C Vicars

Pupils have watched a beautiful digital animation of a collaborative piece of work by Maxim Shkret and Philipp Pavlov found on Colossal. It is a piece showing the gradual blooming of a Lion using repeated patterns and hues of similar colours. Students have been exploring gradients of colour and similar leaf shaped patterns to build up an image in a similar way. The images that our students are creating are linked to nature, meeting requirements for both ASDAN and The John Muir award. These images are of the stimulus, The Lion and the start of pupils creations. We will keep you updated on progress and look forward to sharing the finished work with you. Some extremely focused work this morning. You could hear a pin drop! Well done everyone!

"I love the colours and how it looks like a flower opening up"

"That's cool Miss!"