Dear Parents / Carers,

 

We were delighted to welcome all our children back into school today! It has been so lovely to see everyone settle back in and already working so hard in their classes with their teacher and friends!

 

Thank You!

 

I want to extend my heartfelt thanks to our Easterside community for your kind emails and phone calls for staff, which have certainly made a huge difference in these challenging times. Thank you also for your support with your child’s home learning during this lockdown. You have all done a fantastic job and have ensured our children continue to be happy and make progress. The staff have also worked remarkably hard during this period and I can never thank them or praise them enough for their continued enthusiasm and commitment to offering our children the very best. We have had over 100 pupils in school each day and every class has had its own class bubble to teach, as well as keeping on top of the remote learning as well. I think they have done a marvellous job!

 

Thank you to everyone that completed our remote learning parent questionnaire. We had 66 responses in total and I have sent these out to all parents on our APP and Marvellous Me. They can also be found on our website under ‘news’. Your contribution is both appreciated and valued and we will consider everything that has been shared with us as we look to strengthen that provision.

 

Staffing Update

 

Whilst we have been in lockdown there have been a few staffing changes and updates that I need to share with you.

 

Firstly we have said farewell to Mrs Roffe from our ‘Care Team’. Mrs Roffe has recently retired from school and we have thanked her, with the children in school, for all her commitment and support to our pupils and families over the years. We were sad to see her go! Miss Sharp, Mrs Carter and Mrs Brewster remain our ‘Care Team’ and continue to do the sterling work that their team offers.

 

We have also said goodbye to Mr Bailey and welcomed Mr Brown as our new Caretaker for the academy. You will no doubt see him around the site and I hope will make him feel very welcome.

 

Finally, at the end of this term we will also be saying a sad farewell to Mrs Pennock the academy’s business manager. Mrs Pennock will be leaving us after almost 23 years at Easterside Academy. She has been a HUGE part of the academy team and in supporting its improvement and development with us.

 

I know she will be terribly missed by staff, parents and pupils and I want to take this opportunity to wish her all the best for her next adventure!

 

I’d also therefore like to welcome our new business manager Mrs Cooper, who will be starting after Easter but is already working closely with us to ensure there is a smooth transition.

 

 

School Uniform – New Supplier

On a very different note, Mrs Loughran in the office has been working hard to establish a new school uniform supplier for our school. Our uniform can now be bought from Lollipops by either visiting the shop or going online. Everything except the PE shorts will have our school badge on and for a year, parents can have their children’s initials underneath the badge free of charge.

Please take a look!

 

https://lollipops-middlesbrough.co.uk/shop/#shoponline

 

Catch-Up

Following another lockdown you have probably heard lots of talk about ‘catch-up’ out there in the news and media recently. What I can say as a school is that we will be working extremely hard and doing our very best to ensure that your child continues to make good progress in all areas of their learning and development. Your child’s class teacher knows the children in their class well and knows how to achieve this over the next few weeks and term. We will reassure your child and encourage them to help themselves by engage well in their learning both at home and school. We hope that you will continue to support us with this.

 

Finally

As always, my staff and I are here to help and support if you need us. Although the current COVID restrictions do not allow for visitors in school, you can still either contact the school by email or phone or speak to a member of staff outside at the end of the day.

 

 

We are looking forward to the very busy three weeks ahead with you and your children before Easter!

 

Best Wishes

Mrs D Linacre