March 2020

School Newsletter

We would just like to thank everyone for their engagement with digital learning this week. We know that it’s been a steep

learning curve for us all and we are still finding that some things don’t work as we had planned. We appreciate your support as we

all learn together.

A few parents have been in touch asking if the pupils need to complete all tasks every day. The answer is no, we understand that

you are all dealing with different home situations at the moment, with many of you working from home and sharing laptops etc.

Some of your children will be finding it more difficult than others to work from the home and ensuring your child is happy and

settled is the most important thing. So, what we are saying is, do what you can, engage with us when it suits you and let us know

if you have any difficulties.

Teachers are online every day between 10-12 to answer questions and we are looking at a range of ways to engage digitally.

Yesterday some classes had their first Google Meet and some started using Google Hangouts. Look out for more information from

your child’s class teacher of how you can get in touch. Remember this is new to us all and your child will be finding this very

different to being in class. Ensure you have plenty relaxation time and get some fresh air every day if at all possible, even 15

minutes in your garden will help.

Contact with the school

We realise at this time, you may have many questions or concerns about your child’s learning. It might be that they are struggling

with their learning or that you are having issues with technology. We are here to help in anyway we can, but we do ask that you

email the school email address rather than through Google Classroom.

The reason for this, is that staff get an email every time a child writes something on their ‘wall’, even if it just to say “Hi”. As you

can imagine, this means that their email inboxes get very full very quickly. Mrs Blair and I are also linked to the classes, so we get

notifications from all the pupils. This is fantastic as it allows us to see what is going on at home and how the children are

interacting with their teachers. However, the difficulty with this, is that it would be very easy to miss an important email from a

parent.

On Tuesday, I had 400+ emails in my Gmail account. One of those was from a parent and I nearly missed it due to the volume of

emails from pupils. We don’t want to discourage pupils from communicating with their teachers but need to ensure that parents

are able to contact us separately.

For this reason, we would ask that all communications from parents come through the school email address. Mrs Stephen and

Mrs Page are checking this account daily, so will be able to answer your query or pass it on to the class teacher. We appreciate

your help in this matter as we feel this is the best way to ensure questions and concerns are dealt with quickly.

DanestoneSchool@aberdeencity.go.uk

DIGITAL COMMUNICATION

We realise that pupils are now being asked to use a lot of different methods of communication, as a way of keeping in touch with

their teacher. Please remember, none of these methods are compulsory, please engage with them as and when you feel that you

and your child are ready. It can be very daunting when you are getting all these messages, speaking about new apps that you’ve

never heard of. We are currently creating more Parent Guides for technology and these will be with you very soon. Please just take

a breath and relax, we know it’s tough being stuck inside with the children, you need to create your own routines and work in a

way that suits your family.

Quick Links

Google Hangouts https://hangouts.google.com/ 1-1 Video Chat and messaging

Google Meet https://meet.google.com/ Video conference meetings

This week we have all loved seeing photos of you working at home, so we thought you would like to see some photos of the staff working at home. Turn to page 2 for some of our photos, we hope you like seeing what we’ve been doing this week. �