End of the academic year

Dear Parents and Carers,

May I start by saying a huge thank you and farewell to our Year 6 children who left us on Thursday 16th July for the last time after their afternoon leavers assembly and then silent socially distanced disco at Priory Park. It’s always hard to say goodbye to our Year 6 leavers but this year more than any other they deserved a whole year group send off that praised them for their endeavours during their time here at Ashmount. Thank you to all the staff and parents who helped in ensuring this was a success both at school and later at the socially distanced silent disco at Priory Park. We wish them well, but also know that they leave us well prepared for the next stage of their exciting learning journey.

Thank you also to the children and families who came to join us on Friday 17thy July as part of our Meet the Teacher sessions when almost 300 children came to join their new class teachers in preparation for our September return. I am attaching a letter from the leader of the council which makes it clear that school is both safe and fun for all of our children but as of September 3rd when we will welcome all children back to school then we legally expect all children to be here.

Can we remind all families that if there is any change in your contact details your phone number, email or home addresses it is essential that you let the office know at once so we can update our details accordingly.

We would also like to update you on our Anti-Racism and History Work in school and our ongoing commitment to this moving forward we want to commit to actions, and to hold ourselves to account if we fail to make the progress that we promise. We will share our action plan with our school community in our return to school newsletter that will be published in the last week of August. We would also like to thank the parents who have fed in ideas and resources around this invaluable piece of work and any further thoughts at this stage can be sent to me directly.

We are with this newsletter attaching Islington’s Summer Learning Resources and other activities please see the attached leaflet and https://www.islingtoncs.org/home-learning as well as the Time Capsule attachment. Also remember the Oak Academy is still available online and for any reading activities see the sheet attached but also be aware that the school based home learning offer of Bug Club and MyMaths are available online. Our incredible Google Classroom offer will close for the summer as staff take a well earned break and hence this will not be monitored.

We will, apart from Nursery and Reception children who will receive details of their individual staggered start dates separately, all return to school on Thursday 3rd September at 9 a.m. I will issue a separate newsletter in the last week of August which will explain how school will look and what measures we have put in place to ensure all of the community is safe. We will be following a recovery curriculum as the children return which will focus on ensuring the children are safe, secure and begin to put their learning back on track. We will across the school be introducing a new phonics and reading initiative called Read, Write, Inc. that will further strengthen the children’s learning—Louise and Becca will be leading on this.

May I finally thank you for your support during this challenging time and wish you all a restful break.

Best wishes and stay safe, Anthony Carmel (Headteacher)