Reopening School (11th June 2020) - Mr Griffiths

It has been a crazy period in everyone's life, and I'm sure in the nearly 180 year history of Brooke Primary School the situation we have just come through is pretty unique. 

As I write this post on the 11th June 2020, we have finally reached the threshold of 50 children back in school! Only 6 weeks ago, we were consistently at only 2 children in school, so quite an amazing turn-around.

There has been so much positivity coming through to school from parents around the ease with which their child has settled back into school life, and how despite some initial scepticism, they've felt really reassured about how "normal" we are trying to make things for them and their children. In fact, testament to how things have changed in the last few weeks, is that I'm hearing from parents informing me that those siblings still at home are intensely jealous of those who are allowed back into school.

All this positive talk is still bringing challenges. We aren't allowed to exceed 15 children in each group, yet two of our groups are now at 15, and more children are requesting to come back into those groups. How do we staff further groups? Where do we fit them into school? As with everything else that we have done over this period - we will only try to do our best to make things work for as many children as possible.

Brooke Primary: Making the school we would have wanted to go to.

Brooke values: Togetherness, Resilience, Kindness, Wisdom, Love.

Transition for September during Covid-19 (18th June 2020) - Mr Griffiths

We have also been proactive as a school to welcome our new parents and children into the school community, and this is particularly challenging at this time. The school risk assessment outlines that non-essential visits to school are not permitted. To combat this, we put together an amazing virtual transition video:

The purpose of the tour was to introduce the staff and school to those joining us who may, or may not have looked around. To show that, despite media reports, we are almost at business as usual. Most importantly to excite our September starters for joining school.

It gained some media attention, becoming part of an EDP write-up around how Norwich schools are offering September transition. Interestingly, we were the only school in the article which weren't part of the Norwich Opportunity Area funded support for transition - we had just gone for it ourselves!

Brooke Primary: Making the school we would have wanted to go to.

Brooke Values: Togetherness, Resilience, Kindness, Wisdom, Love.