We are aware that this has been a very strange time for children and adults alike. Some of the children may well be feeling anxious about returning to school after their prolonged absence.

We have been thinking about how we can help the children to settle back in to school and to feel calm and ready to learn.

As well as thinking about our curriculum, we have been looking at the school environment and how we can make that as calming and purposeful as possible.

To this end, we have developed our outdoor space so that the children can learn outdoors as much as possible. Examples of this are the new shelter in the forest schools area and the preparation of  the new reading shelter.

Inside school, we are taking William Morris's advice: have nothing... that you do not know to be useful or believe to be beautiful'. An uncluttered room is both good for concentration and easier to keep clean and prevent the spread of infection. We have decided to back our boards with hessian or brown paper so that the children aren't overloaded with stimuli. This is in line with Rosenshine's Principles based on research into how children learn. You can see the books and articles which have inspired our thinking on the website.