Remote Learning: Information for Parents
This information is intended to provide clarity and transparency to pupils and parents or carers about what to expect from remote education where national or local restrictions require entire cohorts (or bubbles) to remain at home.
Will my child be taught broadly the same curriculum as they would if they were in school?
We teach the same curriculum remotely as we do in school wherever possible and appropriate. However, we have needed to make some adaptations in some subjects, such as Art and PE, due to resource implications.
How will my child access any online remote education you are providing?
To access internet-based home-learning tasks, children need to have access to the Internet and an appropriate device because all tasks will be set digitally via our online learning platforms. At St. Mary’s, we use three different platforms (Tapestry, Class Dojo and Google Classroom) which have been chosen to reflect the stages of pupil development and learning needs.
All three age-appropriate online platforms allow pupils to send their work back to a teacher so that the teacher can mark their work and offer feedback, encouragement and/or further guidance. Pupils in school will be trained to use the platforms (Year 1 onwards) and a series of tutorials made by staff, are available on the school website (in the ‘Video Guides’ section of the Home Learning page) to demonstrate how to access work, print, edit or improve and upload completed tasks.
If my child does not have digital or online access at home, how will you support them to access remote education?
For families without access to the Internet or without an appropriate device, school will provide a laptop in the first instance and will then offer paper-based home learning tasks. In January, we sent a survey to all parents about the technology that you have available for your child to use at home. We analysed the results of this survey and now have a list of pupils who we will offer a school owned device to if their class is required to self-isolate or a national lockdown is called. We will contact you by telephone to discuss loaning a device from school. If you do not receive a phone call offering you the opportunity to loan a school device, you can contact the school office to explain your situation and we will do our best to help. You can also send a ClassDojo message to the class teacher who will inform the senior leadership team at school so that we can arrange for you to loan a device from school.
Teachers are aware that not many households have a printer and so work set will not require you to print worksheets for your child, although this will still be an option for those parents who prefer to work this way with their child.
Paper-based tasks will also mirror the learning, or planned learning, being completed by pupils in school. We ask that parents support their child/ren as much as is possible with this work. Parents may wish to record observations and comments to help identify areas a child may need additional support. Please ensure this work is returned to school as soon as the period of self-isolation has ended. School will quarantine the work for 72 hours before marking and returning to the child. It is the responsibility of parents to inform school if paper-based learning is required.
How will my child be taught remotely?
Using the online learning platforms, class teachers will use a combination of approaches to teach pupils remotely. Across the school, we will use White Rose Hub (https://whiterosemaths.com/homelearning/) to set daily maths lessons which mirror the Power Maths scheme we use in school and for English, we will use Oak Academy (https://www.thenational.academy/). These lessons will consist of recorded teaching and highly sequenced learning activities.
As well as teacher made and web-based resources being used, we have also invested in subscriptions to several online learning technology packages. The subscriptions will be used to supplement the resources made by the teachers. Pupils have their own passwords for these educational subscriptions and have used them in school and so will know how they work. Activities set using these packages are all interactive and feedback is given at the point of learning. Teachers will log on to see how pupils have performed. Below is the list of subscriptions:
Times Table Rock Stars (TTRS)
Numbots
Purplemash
Oxford Owls
BBC Bitesize
Phonics Play
How long can I expect work set by the school to take my child each day?
Class teachers will provide a ‘suggested’ timetable for parents to follow at home. These can be followed exactly to reflect the learning in school or adapted to suit individual families. Each day, class teachers will upload (to the learning platform) a Core Subjects Task Sheet with the learning that we would like parents to focus on in the first instance. On a Monday, class teachers will also upload the Science and Foundation Subjects Task Sheet for the week, setting out the learning in all other curriculum areas. Examples of these can be found on the ‘Home Learning’ section of our school website.
|
Class |
Time |
Learning Platform |
Subjects
|
|
Early Years Foundation Stage Nursery and Reception |
Approximately 2 hours a day |
Tapestry |
Daily Reading Daily Phonics Handwriting Daily Maths Daily Literacy Knowledge and Understanding of the World |
|
Key Stage 1 Years 1 and 2 |
3 hours a day |
Class Dojo |
Daily Reading/Numbots Daily Phonics Handwriting Daily Maths Daily English Additional Learning (Science, History/Geography, RE, PSHE, Music, Art and PE) |
|
Lower Key Stage 2 Years 3 and 4 |
4 hours a day |
Class Dojo |
Daily Reading/TTRS Daily Maths Daily English Weekly Spelling Guided Reading Additional Learning (Science, History/Geography, RE, PSHE, Music, Art and PE) |
|
Upper Key Stage 2 Years 5 and 6 |
4 hours a day |
Class Dojo Google Classroom
|
Daily Reading/TTRS Daily Maths Daily English Weekly Spelling Guided Reading Additional Learning (Science, History/Geography, RE, PSHE, Music, Art and PE)
|
What are your expectations for my child’s engagement and the support that we as parents and carers should provide at home?
Children in EYFS, Year 1 and Year 2 will be heavily reliant on parental support to access the learning via the learning platform, to complete the learning tasks and to upload evidence of their learning to the platform, in order for the teacher to provide feedback. This was taken into account when selecting the learning platforms for these year groups and will also be considered carefully when teachers are planning the tasks and the way that they provide explanations about how to complete them.
Children in Year 3 and Year 4 are gaining more independence and should know how to use the platforms independently. Most children in these year groups will need encouragement to complete the tasks and may need support to maintain concentration until tasks set have been completed. They may need support to complete the activities- but teachers will provide as much digital support as they can. Pupils in these year groups should be able to send work back to their teacher, via the learning platform, fairly independently.
Children in Year 5 and Year 6 should display a more developed level of independence and will be able to access their learning tasks by themselves. With the online support provided by the teachers, they should be able to complete the learning tasks without too much parental support and will know how to send completed work back to the teacher by themselves. The main support that the older pupils will need is with their motivation to complete set tasks to the required standard without face-to-face contact with a teacher.
How will you assess my child’s work and progress?
Teachers will provide online feedback on all tasks, to all pupils. This feedback could be praise for effort or outcome, encouragement to try a little harder, support to make corrections or help to address misunderstandings. This feedback will be in the form of written comments. In addition, teachers may also feel that it is necessary to send Class Dojo messages to parents. These messages could be to congratulate your child’s efforts but may also be to let you know that your child is not completing enough work or is not completing work to the standard that they are capable of.
How will you check whether my child is engaging with their work and how will I be informed if there are concerns?
We monitor all work returned each day on our learning platforms. This then forms the basis of our welfare calls that we make to all parents. If we are concerned with your child’s learning, we will contact you by telephone to see if we can offer any support.
How will you work with me to help my child who needs additional support from adults at home to access remote education?
We recognise that some pupils, for example some pupils with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND), may not be able to access remote education without support from adults at home. We acknowledge the difficulties this may place on families, and we will work with parents and carers to support those pupils.
If your child has a special educational need or disability which means they require an individual learning pack, this will be arranged by your child’s class teacher in conjunction with the SENDCo and other external agencies who may be supporting your child.