With children now back at school, I wanted to say a huge thank you to all our pupils, parents, and staff for their hard work, patience, and dedication during the periods of home schooling we have had over the last twelve months. It was a challenge for all concerned. Our primary objectives were to ensure that our pupil’s academic progress was maintained and that we continued to support their well-being and mental health. To implement these objectives and to provide clarity and transparency for parents and carers, we laid out a clear strategy and approach to home schooling.
Whilst the biggest thank you goes to pupils and parents, my thanks also go out to all the staff at Windrush Valley Private School Oxfordshire for their professionalism, skill, and dedication. The best way to show appreciation is to share some of the parent feedback received during home schooling:
Parent feedback
“We wanted to express our sincere thanks to Mrs. Shirley for all she has done to encourage and inspire our son with his personalised learning, social development and…. sense of humour!”
“Thanks so much again for all of your amazing work and efforts! It will not be forgotten!”
“Thank you for the one-on-one time you have given our daughter during home schooling. This has been her favourite time of the day, every day. I think she’s made excellent progress and you’ve kept her spark for reading alive!”
“I’d just like to say thank you for all your help over the past few months, you have made online learning so much fun for the children, our son has enjoyed logging on each morning and he just loves being your class.”
“Thank you for the fabulous job you did with the online learning.”
“I think the whole school timetable is now perfectly organised and I welcome the slightly looser afternoon schedules which seem to work so much better for everyone in the home environment. I was particularly impressed with my son’s creative writing. I’ve never seen him write so much and he needed no encouragement from me. He is also very much still enjoying being part of a class atmosphere during the live lessons.“
“Thanks so much for doing a wonderful job teaching them all online.”
“It’s lovely to see how well all the children seem to be coping with the online classes. What an amazing talent and skill you have for keeping them engaged.”
“You’ve been so brilliant with our daughter and we cannot thank you enough. To see her excited about reading and learning again has been a joy to witness.”
“Thanks once again for the wonderful lessons – you’re a teaching hero!”
“Thank you so much for the additional support you’ve provided to our daughter in recent weeks. It’s just given her a real boost in confidence. Schooling in this time has been hard for all but you’ve done a great job at keeping the children motivated and engaged with the work.”
“We just wanted to say a big thanks for helping our son continue to thrive, under what are difficult and unusual circumstances.”
“You have been brilliant!”
“I’m sure you had everything set up and ready to go with contingency planning but still the reality is that you pulled it off in a pretty awesome way.”
“I was truly impressed by last week’s online meetings. Thank you. Your need to see all of the children’s faces clearly so that you not only ensured they were participating and engaged. I really got a sense that you were concerned for their emotional wellbeing while home schooling.”
“You set an excellent tone to the meetings. A perfect balance of fun, understanding and discipline.”
“I’m sure it’s an awful lot more work for you with the combination of in school, online and no doubt a busy home life too so thank you.”
Thank you once again to all pupils, parents, and staff.
Mrs Amanda Douglas, BA(Hons) QTS
Headteacher