Rydal Penrhos Daily Notes – April 14

Day 17 – 12 pupils, 5 staff

Another beautiful day in Colwyn Bay but deceptively cold in the morning. I spent the whole morning telling children to put their coats on as they were about to go outdoors, being told they didn’t need them and then having to open the front door every minute as child after child returned to get their coat!

By the afternoon they had been told in no uncertain terms that they HAD to wear their coats! Unfortunately, it was actually now warm so we spent the rest of the afternoon trying to find coats which had been left somewhere outside!!

The pupils did a variety of activities including writing letters to thank family members (or the Easter Rabbit!!) for their Easter treats, playing new games in the forest, having a great game of footgolf and beating various teachers at table tennis, foosball and chess!

The pupils are also asking questions about next week when we ‘return to school’ and lessons will begin again; I have confirmed that they will be doing lessons along with the remainder of their classes but they will be done remotely and from home – it remains to be seen how we set up the timetable for ‘live’ video lessons and how this will work with siblings and only one laptop but we’re onto it and information will be coming to all families on Friday.

In the meantime teachers are working very hard to ensure everything is set up for online remote learning; we actually have teachers who live so remotely that they don’t have access to wifi in their home. I’m sure a few families will find that they too have been working hard on improving their own internet connection.

Teachers are completing training in Microsoft teams, One note, Stream and how to upload information and lessons to Sharepoint and One Drive…goodness me!

We have also looked with great detail at safeguarding online and at new software and websites that we can use to make sure that all of the remote learning is undertaken using the latest and best practice.

However my most ‘interesting’ online course to date has been one shared by our Health and Safety Manager called ‘Ergowize’. Having no idea what it was about, and curiosity getting the better of me, I opened it to find that the next 90 minutes of my life would be devoted to understanding how I should be sitting at my desk and where I should place my mouse!

This has resulted in me having a new awareness of my posture that has led to funny looks from passing pupils and staff…apparently everything I was formally doing is wrong… angle of back, slouching, height of chair to name but a few. I must also do mini-break stretches every twenty minutes and a five-minute walk around every 40 minutes alongside rearranging my entire workspace to have minimal clutter, maximum natural light (but no glare on the screen!) and no major fluctuations in either noise levels of temperature! Have they ever worked in a school?!

Anyway I passed the online ErgoWize test with 100% (so proud!) but failed the reality test and ended up with backache and a complex about screen glare!

I have been round classrooms to check out chairs and tables though and you’ll be reassured to know that the gap between table and chair completely meets the recommendations…phew!

Mrs L Davies

Head of Prep