The discrete sections address the following areas:
1 – Will my child be taught broadly the same curriculum as they would if they were in school?
2 – Remote teaching and study time each day
3 – Accessing Remote Education
3.1 – How will my child access any online remote education you are providing?
3.2 – If my child does not have digital or online access at home, how will you support them to access Remote Education?
4 – How will my child be taught remotely?
5 – Engagement and Feedback
5.1 – What are your expectations for my child’s engagement and the support that we as parents and carers should provide at home?
5.2 – How will you check whether my child is engaging with their work and how will I be informed if there are concerns?
6 – Safeguarding
7 – How will you assess my child’s work and progress?
8 – Additional support for pupils with particular needs
8.1 – How will you work with me to help my child who needs additional support from adults at home to access remote education?
9 – Remote Education for self-isolating pupils
9.1 – If my child is not in school because they are self-isolating, how will their Remote Education differ from the approaches described above?
We will continue to deliver a broad, balanced and accessible curriculum to all students working remotely from home.
The principles underpinning this are:
Our approach to remote teaching is that all year groups, i.e. Years 7-11 will follow their individual timetables. The timetables operate on a 2-week basis with 25 x 50 minute lessons per week; 5 lessons per day.
The timings of the day are:
The changes will allow us to manage staff and student wellbeing in terms of screen time. All lessons are followed by a screen break and an opportunity to walk round and stretch legs. This should help to reduce screen fatigue and boost student engagement. Staff will be asked to schedule all lessons (send out invites) at the new times to aid planning and student organisation before 8.35am.
Our preferred delivery model will be Microsoft Office TEAMS, which we use in school and students are already familiar with. Work will be shared by teachers via a discrete TEAMS invite for each subject/class. From TEAMS, each student will be able to access:
Students can access our remote offer using a variety of digital devices, e.g. laptops, Chromebooks, tablets, phones and iPads. All devices will require internet access and students should note that Apple iOS devices can sometimes alter the formatting of documents. If you have any problems accessing our Remote Education, please contact school reception and we will support you. Departments will also use a variety of ICT resources to develop assessment and feedback.
We understand that some pupils may not have a suitable device to work with at home therefore we can offer the following:
We know from our experience and through feedback, since March and September, what tends to work and what doesn’t. All staff have been excellent at trialing different strategies and adapting their approach so that it is more effective in supporting learning. Key observations have included:
Students benefit from access to their teacher through:
We expect all students to engage fully in remote learning so that lost learning is kept to an absolute minimum. As we are following a familiar timetable and timings, with ready access to the class teacher, we believe that students will require limited support from home. We are confident that our approach will provide students with a clear structure enabling them to progress well through learning but it does require commitment on their behalf to ensure good attendance and meaningful participation in live lessons. We recognise that some students may find this approach to learning more challenging than others for a variety of reasons. Where this is the case, we will work flexibly with parents to manage any constraints or difficulties in accessing the full curriculum. Our wider pastoral support team will also engage with parents and students on an individual basis in such situations.
Whilst we trust that our approach places fewer demands on parents / carer we do know that parents play a vital role in supporting their child whilst working at home. Parents can support both the school and their child by:
We will check levels of engagement through:
We have clear guidelines and expectations for both students and staff around online learning and live lessons – see our Remote learning policy: January 2021, which is available on the school website. We have identified potentially vulnerable students and have a regular contact plan in place for those students; this is led by our pastoral teams. Staff and students are encouraged to raise any concerns, no matter how minor they feel they may be, to a trusted person and/or key individuals including:
Where concerns are raised they will be managed sensitively and professionally. We will investigate any and all concerns to verify the facts and take appropriate action as required. Investigations into student absence from lessons will carefully consider all evidence to ensure safety of students is paramount in our considerations. Where appropriate we will work closely with parents and outside agencies.
Ongoing assessment and feedback is incredibly important and a crucial component of remote learning. The school will continue to regularly assess student progress in each subject area through a variety of effective strategies. Each department will utilise a broad range of assessment strategies with the clear aim of enabling our students to recognise what they are doing well, where there are mistakes or misconceptions and what they need to do to improve. Feedback can take many forms and may not always mean extensive written comments for individual students. Our approach to feeding back to pupils will vary and some of these strategies may include:
We recognise and understand that some pupils, for example, some pupils with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND), may not be able to fully access remote education without support from adults. We are aware of the demands this may place on families therefore we will work with parents and carers to support those pupils to replicate the support in school as much as we can, while utilising technology to offer additional support to students with additional needs. Specifically, this could include:
The simple answer is that it won’t. During the period of main school closure, self-isolating students will still be expected to access and engage in their live lessons; this assumes that their health allows for this. Work will also be set on TEAMS for each subject area so that students can continue to access their curriculum studies at home. When we return to full time education self isolating students are invited to join lessons in real time via TEAMS so that they can join their class and not miss out on the benefits of being in the lesson with their teacher.