Dear Parents of Room 2,

So myself and Mrs Hilditch think we have finally got our heads around the technology to offer the chance for the children at home to attend a ‘live lesson’. That means, if your computer has a webcam and a microphone the children at home can login and can join the children in school for an actual lesson being taught by either myself or Mrs Hilditch. This will also allow the children the opportunity to see their friends if they haven’t seen them in a while.

We are starting off small next week so it might only be for 20/30 minutes one day or one lesson on another but hopefully we will be able to increase this to more. Fingers crossed it will work!

Here is what we were thinking for next week.

• Tuesday 19^th January @ 14:00    Mrs Hilditch will be reading a chapter or two of our class book called Stitch Head by Guy Bass. It will last about 20/30 minutes.
• Wednesday 20^th January @ 9:10 Mrs Davies will be doing the introduction to the Maths lesson. It will last about 20/30 minutes.
• Thursday 21^st January @ 13:45 Mr Boffey (he is a teacher helping out Mrs Davies during Lockdown) will be leading another Science investigation into friction. This session will allow the children at home to see a whole class investigation being done in school along with the results. The children can watch the investigation and consider that their Science lesson done for the week or they can carry out a similar investigation at home when they have logged out of the meeting. It will last 20/30 minutes.

In order for the children to attend these lives sessions. You will need to have a few things set up first.

• The children will need to have their school email account set up ready to go. Mrs Andrews has created a video in order to help you. It should be at the top of ‘News and Updates’ page on the school website. Please have a look.
• The children will need to know their email address and password. This should be on the inside of their reading record book. The address is something like this 17Surname.A@pontesbury.shropshire.sch.uk followed by their password. If you are unsure what these are, then please email us or Mrs Andrews for them. If your child has already logged onto Google Classroom it the same information you needed for that.
• You will need to download Microsoft Teams. If you aren’t aware of Microsoft Teams it is like Zoom. That means the children can see the teacher, the classroom and each other. The children should also be able to access Microsoft Teams through their emails. If the children click on the 9 dots at the top of their email account, Microsoft Teams should be an option there.
• When myself or Mrs Hilditch set up a meeting a link for the meeting will go to the children’s email account. They can click on the link in the email and accept. They would then need to open up Teams and access the calendar tab at the side. Hopefully, the meeting will be in the calendar. The children need to click on the meeting to join.
• If you have chance could you show the children how to mute/unmute their microphones so we are not all talking at the same time!

I hope this helps, but I thought I would send it over the weekend to allow you enough time to set it up.

Hopefully, we will see the children there!

Regards,

Mrs Davies and Mrs Hilditch.