Like many settings, the St Joseph’s team continue to adapt and develop their Covid-safe approaches to engaging families. They are using google class, in line with the rest of the school, to provide continuity of approach for parents.
The team initially provided parents with outdoor, distanced IT support on how to install and use google class. SEYP Ailsa Sugden shares their approach
“We post our fortnightly child led plans for families so they know what we will be learning. We also regularly post photos and video tours of the learning opportunities. We have had positive feedback from parents about these and Rhyme of the Week, stories and Powerpoints we share with them.”
Parents feedback is that the ELC approach creates an important link between the nursery and home learning as well as partnerships between staff and parents. Some parents are sharing their child’s experiences at home or out and about, linked to their current learning. “Parents upload photographs or videos of their children and this is very easy to access on a range of devices.”
Children are talking about learning at home and “the children often explore google classroom with their keyworker. They can make links between what they learn at home and what they learn at nursery.”
There are other communication methods in place too. Practitioners cover handover times on a rota to help enable all parents to have a little regular informal physically distanced chat with their child’s keyworker. Practitioners phone parents to discuss anything confidential.
The parents say – “We have never seen the nursery so the videos help us to know what our children are talking about when they come home.” “It is a really good way for me to see my child in the nursery whilst I am working away.” “The videos show me how happy my child is at nursery.”