As a consequence of the Covid-19 lockdown, two of our partner schools, St Mary’s RC and Sacred Heart RC Primaries, organised two-week summer school catch-up programmes for their Year 1 and Year 5 children from 27 July to the 7th August. The aims of the programmes were to fill in some of the gaps in learning and, importantly, to enable the children to have fun together after the challenges of lockdown and home learning.
Groups of 15 children participated in literacy and maths sessions each morning with games and art taking place in the afternoon. An amazing 33 Emanuel Sixth Form students volunteered during their summer holidays to help. They provided hands-on support in the literacy, maths and arts sessions and designed and ran the sports sessions.
As you will have read in the news, many children really struggled over lockdown as they had limited or no ability to access online lessons. Parents were afraid to let their children out, especially if someone in the household was shielding. Fitness and fresh air were therefore compromised too. The summer schools gave the children the opportunity to catch up academically and enjoy the benefits of exercise and social interaction again.
Jared Brading, Executive Headteacher of the Federation of Sacred Heart and St Mary’s RC Primary Schools Battersea, stated in a letter to Mr Milne, “I wanted to take the opportunity to congratulate you and thank you for the hard working, enthusiastic Emanuel Sixth Form volunteer students that joined my two summer schools in July and August. They were all fantastic and such a credit to you and the school. The children from St Mary’s and Sacred Heart loved working with them and the teachers really appreciated the support.”
Lisa Irwin (Deputy Development & Community Partnerships Director)
