Letter to Parents Home Learning Info 4th May

4th May 2020

Dear Parents and Carers,

I hope you and your family and friends are keeping well and safe during these difficult times. As you will know we have been open as a school for children of key workers and other identified students but we have also been hosting four other schools on our site.

I am very aware that the current situation can be very difficult and put an enormous amount of pressure on families, both financially and emotionally. If you need to access support please contact the academy and we may be able to provide it ourselves or contact other groups who can provide support. Any request or information will be dealt with sensitively. The academy email is [email protected] or by phone on 0117 9413800.

The Government are looking at plans around easing lockdown and when we know more details we will begin to share our plans with you. However, unless the restrictions on social distancing are lifted we will not be able to open the school fully and return to “normal” for some time. We are well aware that when the students come back to school we are going to have adjust our plans so that we can support them to make up for some of the time they have lost by not being in school. However, we are confident that we can do this and are already planning for when we re-open, whenever and whatever that may look like. In the meantime, we will continue to support your children’s learning by setting work through our website or home learning packs. Please see the attached information that was previously put on the website about home learning.

Year 8 Options

Normally we would have carried out the year 8 options process during this time. This will now be moved to year 9. Whilst we had not been able to communicate this with parents this was a move that we were intending to implement. Ofsted have changed their views on what a good curriculum should be and are now wanting all schools to start GCSEs in year 10. We had therefore been planning to move our options process to year 9 anyway. If you would like more details please contact Mr Tucker, Vice Principal.

Contact Information

Please can you ensure your contact details for your child are up to date – if you have moved house, or have a new phone number or email address, please send the details to [email protected].

We realise that this is a very unsettling time for children as well as families. Please stay safe and we will keep you updated as best we can over the coming days and weeks.

Yours faithfully
Jon Angell, Principal of City Academy

Dear Parent/Carer,

It’s been three weeks since we started national lockdown, introduced by the Government to protect us against the spread of Coronavirus. I understand the difficulties this has presented but hope that you are settling well into a new routine. We’ve all faced huge challenges personally and professionally and yet, I hope you’ll agree, there have been many heart-warming moments to come out of this crisis where community spirit has been at its strongest. I have been continually impressed by the dedication and commitment of our staff at the City Academy who have worked hard to ensure that they contribute to the best of their ability to the new working ways of the schools.

Throughout the past week colleagues have attempted to contact all parents and carers to confirm how students will continue to learn from home during this period of school closure. Now that this information has been collated, I thought it important to clarify our expectations for home learning over the coming weeks. In these unprecedented times we understand that, for many of our students, formal education may not always be the top priority, and we agree that there are many other aspects of life that may be more significant. To this effect, I have enclosed a schedule that you may wish to use with your child, based on the programme of study they follow at the Academy. I have designed this schedule to assist you with encouraging your child to study in a way which fits with your individual circumstances. At this time, more than ever, it is important that we look after our well-being, so please do only use this as a guide, however I would ask that English and Maths work are prioritised, as well as students reading for twenty minutes a day. Please also find enclosed:

• Instructions for students to log in to the home learning website,
• Instructions for students to access their email accounts,
• Instructions for how students should open an online word document to share their completed work
with their teachers,
• A guide to accessing the various online platforms different subjects are using during the school
closure.

If students have any issues with passwords for these programmes, they should contact either their learning facilitator or their subject teacher over email who will be able to help. Finally, we are very pleased to be able to support families who meet the criteria for critical key working by accommodating their children alongside vulnerable pupils at school. We are extremely grateful to the staff who have volunteered to supervise the children in the last few weeks and to those who will be in over the coming weeks to maintain this provision. We are sure you will join us in extending our sincere thanks to all key workers – those who are treating our ill and vulnerable community members and those who are working hard to keep society functioning in various ways such as by providing food, making essential deliveries or cleaning services for example.

Stay safe,
Jon Angell

English (reading)
To access Accelerated Reader at home (years 7, 8 and 9):
https://ukhosted90.renlearn.co.uk/2233055/
Website to access free books online: https://readon.myon.co.uk
City Academy Independent Reading Guide and Resources: http://cityacademy.bristol.sch.uk/wpcontent/uploads/Independent-Reading-Guidance-and-Resources-.pdf
Maths (all maths work is set here)
Please go to https://vle.mathswatch.co.uk/vle/
Username:
Year 7 19 surname (with a capital first letter), then their first initial (in a capital) @cab
Year 8 18 surname (with a capital first letter), then their first initial (in a capital) @cab
Year 9 17 surname (with a capital first letter), then their first initial (in a capital) @cab
Year 10 16 surname (with a capital first letter), then their first initial (in a capital) @cab
Year 11 15 surname (with a capital first letter), then their first initial (in a capital) @cab
For example a year 7 student called John Doe – his login would be 19DoeJ@cab
Password: Bristol

Tassomai (Supplementary Science)

Please go to https://app.tassomai.com/login Students have set up their own account. If for any reason they have not yet set up an account:

1.Go to www.tassomai.com
2.Select ‘Sign In’ from the top right hand corner of the page
3.Click ‘Register with a code’
Enter your unique school code: NUB4WT49
Choose the correct class from the dropdown menu.
5.Select a password. If you have forgotten your password, try the word ‘bristol’

If they need to reset their email or password they can email either [email protected] or [email protected]

Seneca Learning (English, History, Geography, Business – supplementary work)

Please go to https://senecalearning.com Students have set up their own account. Students then click on ‘classes’ and put in the class code that their teacher has given them. If they do not know their class code, they can email their teacher to provide them the class code.