Remote education provision

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.

For details of what to expect where individual pupils are self-isolating, please see the final section of this page.

A pupil’s first day or two of being educated remotely might look different from our standard approach, while we take all necessary actions to prepare for a longer period of remote teaching.

What should my child expect from immediate remote education in the first day or two of pupils being sent home?

All lessons will be available through Class Charts or Work packs (If requested)

Following the first few days of remote education, 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. For example, practical based subjects and practical activities in lessons.

Remote teaching and study time each day

How long can I expect work set by the school to take my child each day?

We expect that remote education (including remote teaching and independent work) will take pupils broadly the following number of hours each day:

Key Stage 3 and 4 5 hours of work will be available

How will my child access any online remote education you are providing?

Class Charts

Microsoft Teams

Student email account

If my child does not have digital or online access at home, how will you support them to access remote education?

We recognise that some pupils may not have suitable online access at home. We take the following approaches to support those pupils to access remote education:

To date we have loaned 206 laptops and 30 WiFi dongles to students. Parents/carers can contact their DoY to request a laptop and find out more information.
If any student requires a paper work pack these are available. Parents/carers can contact their DoY to request a paper work pack; a pre-paid return postage envelope will be included in the pack.
Students can submit work to their teachers in the pre-paid envelope if they do not have online access

We use a combination of the following approaches to teach pupils remotely:

Weekly assemblies led by the DoY and HoY
Live introductions to lessons and live teaching (Online lessons through MS Teams)
Recorded teaching (e.g. Oak National Academy lessons, video/audio recordings made by teachers)
Printed paper work packs produced by teachers (e.g. workbooks, worksheets)
Textbooks and reading books pupils have at home
Commercially available websites supporting the teaching of specific subjects or areas, including video clips or sequences

What are your expectations for my child’s engagement and the support that we as parents and carers should provide at home?

It is our expectation that all students will access all lessons via either Class Charts, MS Teams or paper work packs
As parents, please support by:
- setting routines to support your child’s education
- asking them about their timetable of lessons each day
- responding to any SWB texts or social media posts the academy may send

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 in the following ways:

All students with an EHCP have a key member of staff within the SEND department usually SENCO who is calling at least weekly to ensure that they know what they need to do with the work but to also check welfare of household.
Students identified as SEND Support (K) have an allocated member of the SEND Team (TA/ HLTA/ SENDCO) to ensure weekly calls are made to support with remote learning. This provides communication with parents and SEND students to support with reducing barriers to learning and ensure remote learning is effective.
We are also tracking SEND engagement across the year groups and through an extended team are breaking down any barriers preventing this.
Not all EHCP students are in school and RA’s have been completed in line with LA guidance for all students and in liaison with the year teams, checks on work and attendance are being made. Key students without an EHCP but who have a high level of need are also included in this key group.
Teachers have continued to differentiate online learning with TA’s in Teams lessons and available after lessons for additional support.
Bespoke work packs are being put together for those SEND students struggling to access online learning. These are being compiled by TA’s, HLTA’s, Educational Psychologist and specialist teacher. These packs are bought back into the academy at the end of the week for staff to mark so our students can have feedback.
Direct student involvement with EP via Teams and phone conversations. They are also creating bespoke activities e.g. anger management, self-esteem.
Outreach are in communication with specific students
Teaching Assistants are offering intervention sessions via Team’s to support lesson content, IT issues or confidence building whilst being online.
Reading interventions (Lexia) are continuing, as students are able to access this online.
Vulnerable or children of Key Workers complete the same work as the rest of the year group on school premises (live lessons) and have TA support as they would throughout the year.
An online virtual library is accessible for all our students however; our TA’s have been given specific training to support and enable our SEND students to access this provision with ease.
Our alternative provision is being closely monitored and some programmes for our young people are still being offered through lockdown.
We are referring students whose parents wish to have input from the LA EP service. The Inclusion support team are continuing to work with our young people remotely to offer support for SEMH issues.
We are referring to Barnardos to access three levels of support, from one to one bespoke support, to development and support for families struggling to cope with children who are finding online learning challenging. and quite recently we are using Barnardos to again help/counsel our most vulnerable students.

Where individual pupils need to self-isolate but the majority of their peer group remains in school, how remote education is provided will likely differ from the approach for whole groups. This is due to the challenges of teaching pupils both at home and in school.

If my child is not in school because they are self-isolating, how will their remote education differ from the approaches described above?

Students will receive a weekly work pack (digital and paper) which is in line with the curriculum being taught in school
Work packs should be returned to school on a weekly basis and students will receive personalised feedback

Structure

1. Students will follow their normal timetable

2. By 9am every morning students will be able to access work for that day

3. For all every single lesson students have a Microsoft Teams lesson in which the work is explained and questions answered.

4. At the end of the lesson’s students will be expected to upload work to ClassCharts

Below is a series of ‘How to help videos’ & documents for students to help with their Remote Access and Online Learning.

Video Guides

Uploading to Classcharts from a laptop or PC – https://youtu.be/JTFdLVZX-Ms

Uploading photos to Classcharts via a mobile device – https://youtu.be/bTe46UJizKo

Attaching to an email with Outlook – https://youtu.be/GxDyB5mfS5c

Logging into Microsoft Teams – https://youtu.be/hBXdXcPsA5M

If students have any issues with work and are struggling to contact their teachers they should email the following addresses;