Remote Learning 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 if 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.

The remote curriculum: what is taught to pupils at home

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?

In the first day or two of remote education you can expect your child’s teacher to make contact via Seesaw to enable your child to begin to complete some learning activities.

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, in PE where you may not have the equipment we have in school.

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:

Primary school-aged pupils

Reception – up to 3 hours including 30 minutes of physical activity, a phonics activity, an English activity, a maths activity, a topic based activity and some free flow play time. In addition, some learning is focussed on starting to explore Metacognition and our school values.

KS1 – 3 hours including 30 minutes of physical activity, a phonics/spelling activity, an English activity, a maths activity, a reading activity, a topic based activity. Weekly Metacognition activities and learning to support our school values are also provided

LKS2 – 4 hours including 30 minutes of physical activity. Daily lessons in English and maths; set reading activities or time spent reading; activities to support the learning of spellings and times tables. During each week, sessions to support our school value and metacognition skills as well as topic based activities will be provided.

UKS2 – 4 hours including 30 minutes of physical activity, Timestable Rockstars (15-20 mins), a spelling activity, reading and writing sessions, a maths lesson and a topic-based lesson (based on block teaching). In addition, weekly Metacognition activities and learning to support our school values.

Accessing remote education

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

All remote learning can be accessed via Seesaw

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:

· We have a limited number of digital devices that we can lend out to pupils who require them for remote learning. Please contact the school office via [email protected] to apply.

· We can also provide data-only sim cards that can be used in smart devices to create a wifi hot spot for those who may not have home broadband.

How will my child be taught remotely?

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

Some examples of remote teaching approaches:

· live teaching (online sessions)

o As a school, we have taken the decision not to use this method exclusively for a number of reasons, primarily because of the digital divide – not all families in our school would be able to access the lessons at home for a number reasons including, but not limited to, lack of devices in the home, needing to share devices between siblings and insufficient internet access

· live welfare ‘check in’ sessions with groups

· Recorded teaching (e.g. Oak National Academy lessons, video/audio recordings made by teachers)

o We aim to provide at least one lesson a day that has been recorded by a teacher in your child’s year group. The benefits of recorded lesson include the ability to pause and revisit, no set timetable for viewing and being accessible on a wide range of devices.

· Workbooks (Maths! No Problem) and reading books pupils have at home

· Commercially available websites supporting the teaching of specific subjects or areas, including video clips or sequences

Engagement and feedback

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

· During school closures children are expected to engage daily with remote learning.

o We do understand that remote learning is difficult and on some days it may not be possible to engage with all learning.

· Parents or carers will need to support their child in differing ways. Parents and carers will need to ensure:

o their children have all the resources needed

o their children can access any online resources and videos

· During ‘live’ sessions parents will need to ensure:

o their child is in a suitable location

o They are responsible for maintaining the learning behaviours of their child

How will you check whether my child is engaging with their work and how will I be informed if there are concerns?

Teachers will monitor child engagement daily and will report any concerns to Senior Leaders at school.

Where children’s engagement is persistently not daily, well being phone calls will be made by the class teacher or senior leader to discuss what barriers there are to the child engaging with the remote provision.

How will you assess my child’s work and progress?

Feedback can take many forms and may not always mean extensive written comments for individual children. Our approach to feeding back on pupil work is as follows:

During school closure children can expect daily feedback for all the work submitted via Seesaw. This may take the form of:

· A ‘like’ as an acknowledgement of the work as a minimum

· A typed comment

· An audio comment

· ‘Live’ sessions with teachers may also include some feedback where appropriate

The type and frequency of feedback will be dependent on the workload of the teachers working in school with children of Keyworkers and vulnerable pupils.

Additional support for pupils with particular needs

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:

Children with a designated adult in school can expect daily contact with that adult on the days in which that adult would normally support that child in school. This may take the form of:

· A phone call

· A ‘live’ session

o During these sessions the adult may support the child with some of the targets on their IEP where appropriate

· In Reception there is an expectation that some of the remote learning time will be similar to free flow activity in the classroom using toys and resources children will have at home e.g. playing with lego or play dough to develop fine motor skills. We will also provide guidance as to what play activities can enhance their child development.

· Parents will be directed to appropriate online and television based learning that children can participate in to support remote learning e.g. Numberblocks and Alphablocks on Cbeebies or Oak National Academy lessons.

· We will also provide short guidance videos to help parents best support their child’s learning in specific areas like early writing

· Children who usually use Clicker in school can request home access for this software to support their writing. This needs to be discussed with the child’s class teacher

Remote education for self-isolating pupils

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?

Self-isolating pupils will have a daily timetable from their class teacher with learning activities included. This will align as much as possible with the learning that is happening is school.

· Teachers at St Francis will not be streaming live lessons from their classrooms for self-isolating pupils.

· Self-isolating pupils can expect some communication from an adult in the classroom daily

o This may be in the form of a phonecall or ‘live’ session or a dialogue with an adult from the class via Seesaw