Matt Dunkley CBE

Corporate Director, Children, Young People and Education

Dear Parents,

We understand that many of you with children in Year 5 are very anxious to know what will happen about the Kent Test when the new school year starts in September. We are carefully considering what might be deliverable, depending on advice from central government as the pandemic runs its course and decisions are made about the easing of lockdown for children of primary school age.

Many factors could change between now and the end of term and this means that we are currently unable to tell you exactly how we will assess children for grammar school in the new academic year. We can confirm, however, that we will need some way to identify which children are eligible.

Testing has the benefit of being available to the thousands of grammar school applicants we normally assess every year, however recently they have arrived in Kent and wherever they usually study, even if they are home educated, so it would be the most straightforward option if it is possible. Whatever is decided, though, we need to be confident that we can keep the risk to children and their teachers as low as possible, allowing grammar schools meet their legal obligations in a fair and transparent way,  while allowing KCC to stay within the national timetable for coordinating school admissions.

We appreciate that everyone of school age is missing classroom teaching, but it is fortunate that there are many excellent resources available through schools and education sites for children. Familiarisation material for the Kent Test can also be found in the “Test Paper” tab below.

We will update the website for everyone’s benefit when we have received further guidance from the Department for Education and there is a clearer understanding of what arrangements may be possible. In the meantime, we would ask that parents monitor the Kent Test page for updates, rather than sending individual enquiries. We do understand that uncertainty is difficult, especially for children, but KCC is unable to confirm what arrangements will be in place until there is a clearer understanding of how children are likely to return to school in greater numbers.

The tab below for test papers as mentioned can be found on the following website

https://www.kent.gov.uk/education-and-children/schools/school-places/kent-test#null

Welcome to the Class 5 Page. Here you wll find all the information you will need about what we are up to as a class. We will aim to share as much as we can with you through our class page during the year.

Class Teacher: Mr Wickham

TA: Mrs Reid

Class email: penguin@luddenham.kent.sch.uk

It was great to see all the children doing so well in the Spelling Bee today.

We were all very impressed with their fantastic work

On Rangers Day we have been learning about the important role the Air Ambulance plays and we have all dressed in Red to show our support.

After learning about the Air Ambulance and how it works, we then tried on soem of their equipment, befor evisiting a mortorsport ambulance in the playground.

We then had a go at putting bandages and slings on each other.