TILSTOCK Primary School and Sir John Talbots will continue to support pupils throughout lockdown to ensure continued access to a 'first-class' education.

Tilstock, which is part of the Marches Academy Trust, currently has 38 per cent of students physically attending and is continuing with teaching all areas of the curriculum.

Students will also take part in creative events such as Poetry by Heart and the school's spelling bee competition, which have proved very popular with the community.

The school are also ensuring there are a vast range of activities in order to maintain engagement while the children are learning remotely.

Those children in schools will still take part in PE and those at home are encouraged to take part in planned live PE lessons. The children will also take part in Forest School at least once per week.

Rowena Kaminski, head of school at Tilstock, says pupils will be fully supported whether learning in person or remotely.

"We are here to support parents and carers with whatever they need from teaching and learning to help with wellbeing," she said. "We are ensuring that every student will receive at least one phone or video call per week from their class teacher.

"We feel this is so important to support our children.

"Every week each class teacher will host story time online which helps maintain a connection with our community.

"While remote learning, children upload their work onto the online platform and feedback is given to all students from their class teacher in addition to accessing TT Rockstars, Science Developing Experts app and Read Write Inc. in order to enable children to actively develop key skills in the core subjects."

Meanwhile Sir John Talbot's School in Whitchurch, currently has around five per cent of students in school.

Each lesson from Monday, January 11 will be a live lesson to ensure those students at home and in school access the same teaching and learning balanced with the contact with their class teacher.

All students in school will take part in PE once per week.

The PE team are putting together activities to engage students in live lessons with additional PE tasks that students can take part in when not in lessons.

Staff will be conducting a weekly year group assembly on Teams to ensure the students remain informed on activities and feel some connection with their peers.

As with Tilstock CE Primary School, students will receive contact from their tutor via Teams or phone call.

Tim Stonall, SJT's head of school reiterated Mrs Kaminski's comments.

"We are working hard to ensure our students continue their studies and we have transitioned smoothly to live, remote, online learning," he said.

"The staff are doing a tremendous job in maintaining contact with our families and moving their planned work to a format they can deliver online.

"The support from our community has been incredible and I thank our staff and families for managing the changes professionally with the students at the centre of every decision we make."