A Message from Mrs Yay-Walker - Year 2 Transition to Juniors

A Message from Mrs Yay-Walker - Year 2 Transition to Juniors

Following the government's decision not to open schools more widely to other year groups, we have been thinking about what transition arrangements we can put in place for our Year 2 children. Transition arrangements have always been key for our children to help them to settle and feel secure as they leave the infant school and move on to the junior school. Sadly this year, this puts our Year 2 children at risk as they will not have the chance to understand the changes that are taking place and what is in store for them as they move up to Year 3.
 
Therefore, we have been looking at how we can facilitate bringing year 2 children back in school for 1-2 days in the last week of the summer term, week beginning 13th July. The purpose of this is to provide a sense of closure, allowing children to say goodbye to their teachers, hold a simple outdoor leaver's ceremony (socially distanced), to meet the new Year 3 teachers and to get a small insight into what their new school will be like. Depending on the take up, we hope to be able to offer 1-2 days per child in a socially distanced 'bubble' of 8 children from their class.
 
As you may be aware, we currently do not have capacity to increase the numbers of children as all classrooms are in use. What we would like to propose is that as Year 1 has benefited from starting a week before other year groups, we will finish 1 week before the end of the summer term for Year 1 children only. This will free up desperately needed classrooms to facilitate a small transition for Year 2 children. We realise that this is not ideal for some parents, but we hope that you would be happy to support this to ensure all our Year 2 children have had the chance to return to school before we break up for the summer holidays.
 
We would like to ask Year 2 parents to complete this short survey https://forms.gle/aPQ4jR1DQYzEunHa9 so we can determine how many spaces we will need to accommodate. For Year 1 parents, we hope you will understand the reasons behind this proposal. If there is no adult at home to look after your child, we will try our best to support you, however we will be prioritising the Year 2 children just for the final week of term.
 
There is a video on our website which will give you an idea about what the classrooms will look like on these days. We will update you with further information once we have confirmation of numbers wishing to return.
 
Best wishes,
 
Mrs Yay-Walker