Remote Learning Policy
Introduction
Government guidance states that where a class, group or small number of pupils need to self-isolate, or there is a local lockdown requiring pupils to remain at home, we expect schools to have the capacity to offer immediate remote education. This planning will be particularly important to support a scenario in which the logistical challenges of remote provision are greatest, for example where large numbers of pupils are required to remain at home. We have developed a ‘remote learning solution’ which fits our community and ensures that ALL children can access quality learning in the event of having to isolate at home or due to bubble or school closure.
- Set out how the school will comply with the requirements of the Coronavirus Act 2020 Pro-vision of Remote Education (England) Temporary Continuity Direction.
- Aims to ensure consistency in the schools’ approach to remote learning.
- Provide clarity and transparency to pupils and parents or carers about what to expect from remote education where national or local restrictions require entire schools, cohorts or “bubble” groups to remain at home.
- Adapt our teaching and learning to meet the needs of our children and families during the Covid-19 Pandemic.
- Minimise the disruption to pupils’ education and the delivery of the curriculum.
- Ensure provision is in place so that all pupils have access to high quality learning resources.
- Protect pupils from the risks associated with using devices connected to the internet.
- Ensure staff, parent, and pupil data remains secure and is not lost or misused.
- Ensure robust safeguarding measures continue to be in effect during the period of remote learning.
- Ensure all pupils have the provision they need to complete their work to the best of their ability, and to remain happy, healthy, and supported during periods of remote learning.
- Ensure consistency in the approach to remote learning for all pupils (inc. SEND) who aren’t in school through the use of quality online and offline resources and teaching videos.
- Provide clear expectations for members of the school community with regards to the delivery of high quality remote learning.
Who is this policy applicable to?
- A child who is absent because they are awaiting test results and the household is required to self-isolate. The rest of their school bubble are attending school and being taught as normal.
- A child’s whole bubble is not permitted to attend school because they, or another member of their bubble, have tested positive for Covid-19.
- In the event of whole school closure.
Content and Tools to deliver this Remote Education Plan
- Resources to deliver this Remote Education Plan include:
- Online tools: Microsoft Teams; TTRockstars; Education City, Reading Eggs, Maths seeds
- Weekly year group timetables published on the website
- Use of recorded video for instructional videos and assemblies
- Phone calls home
- Printed learning packs
- Use of BBC Bitesize and Oak Academy
Home and School Partnership
Haughmond Federation is committed to working in close partnership with families and recognises that each family is unique. This means that remote learning will look different for different families in order to suit their individual needs. Where possible, it is beneficial for young people to maintain a regular and familiar routine and we would recommend that each ‘school day’ maintains structure. We would encourage parents to support their children’s work, including finding an appropriate place to work and, to the best of their ability, support pupils with work and encourage them with their learning. Some learning may need introducing and supporting, other work will require the children to be able to complete it independently.
Roles and responsibilities when a child is self-isolating or in the event of a class or school closure
Admin Staff
Admin staff will record if a child needs to self-isolate or is ill on CPOMS. Admin will send out a form to ascertain what support families and children need and it explains about the year group remote learning timetable
Class closure - https://forms.office.com/Pages/ResponsePage.aspx?id=vuX9KitoVk6LoFN7GEZJcCVEGmEGG4JEkgNHFivg94pUMUpaNUxJR0haUlNETDlEWDFaTUkyNVU1Qy4u
School closure
Pastoral Team
A member of the Pastoral Team will contact the family to see how they are and discuss remote learning. Regular phone calls will be made until the child returns to school.
Vulnerable children
Where individuals who are self-isolating are within our definition of vulnerable, a member of the pastoral team will keep in regular contact with them.
When a vulnerable child is asked to self-isolate, schools will notify their social worker (if they have one). It will then be agreed with the social worker the best way to maintain contact and offer support to the vulnerable child.
Team Leaders
Team leaders will provide a weekly timetable. This timetable from each year group will be uploaded onto the school website and emailed out to parents to enable instant access to remote learning should children need to isolate. This timetable contains links to online lessons and paper based activities that are aligned to the lessons that the children would be learning if they were in school. Children can then upload their completed work onto seesaw for their teacher to see. Children will receive feedback from their teachers on Seesaw or when they return their paper packs to school. In addition to this, there will still be all the other online activities that we promote in school and the learning links on the website.
https://www.haughmondfed.net/remote-learning/weekly-timetable
The Weekly timetable will consist a variety of teaching approaches including
Recorded teaching (e.g. Oak National Academy lessons
Printed paper packs from school
Work that has been uploaded to seesaw
School learning sites such as Times Table Rockstars, Education City, Reading Eggs, Curriculum Visions
- Key Stage 1: 3 hours a day on average across the cohort, with less for younger children
Key Stage 2: 4 hours a day
Teachers
Teachers will read a story each week to their class and encourage their children to read something back to them on Seesaw
Teachers will be able to gauge how well children are progressing through the curriculum and modify tasks as appropriate to suit differing needs.
Teachers will be expected to approve work daily and provide valuable feedback to their pupils.
Work on the learning platforms will be responded to daily with a like and/or a comment
Paper packs can be returned to school and checked after being quarantined.
Teachers will monitor engagement and make contact with children who are not engaging.
It is expected that teachers speak to each child in their class at least once a week to be able to discuss their learning
Parents will be able to contact class teachers through Weduc or send messages via Seesaw.
Contact through phone calls will be logged on CPOMS for our records and to enable Safeguarding Leads to keep an overview and follow up on any concerns as quickly as possible.
Additional Support for pupils with particular needs
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
EHCP and GSP children are offered a place within school.
If EHCP and GSP places are declined, then loan of Laptops etc have been offered.
Weekly phone calls will be made to pupils by pastoral staff, class teachers and SENDCo, focusing on the virtual learning activities set and if they require further support to complete these, or if these require adjusting, so that pupils with SEND can successfully access remote education alongside their peers.
Children will receive differentiated work from their class teacher to complete.
Children who have a PCP will also have additional activities assigned or provided through paper copies which are linked where ever possible to PCP outcomes.
Roles and responsibilities for parents
As with the spring lockdown, we DO NOT expect all children to complete all the tasks. Teaching one’s own children at home is a uniquely difficult task.
We would like families to have a go and complete what you are able too. No one will chase up missing work. Many families will be experiencing a difficult time during a lockdown and we do not wish, as a school, to be adding to the huge pressures’ families may be under.
We do need to remain in contact with ALL our families during a lockdown, so we ask that at least one task each week is responded to in some way. Checking Seesaw for interaction is the best way for us as a school to check that our families are safe and well.
To contact school if there is limited access to the internet and/or devices so school can support by either providing a place in school, loan a device or provide paper packs
Roles and responsibilities for other staff
Subject Coordinators
Alongside their teaching responsibilities, subject leads are responsible for:
Considering whether any aspects of the subject curriculum need to change to accommodate remote learning
Working with teachers teaching their subject remotely to make sure all work set is appropriate and consistent
Working with other subject leads and senior leaders to make sure work set remotely across all subjects is appropriate and consistent, and deadlines are being set an appropriate distance away from each other
Monitoring the remote work set by teachers in their subject
Alerting teachers to resources they can use to teach their subject remotely
Senior leaders
Alongside any teaching responsibilities, senior leaders are responsible for:
Co-ordinating the remote learning approach across the school
Monitoring the effectiveness of remote learning – through regular meetings with teachers and reviewing work set or reaching out for feedback from pupils and parents
Monitoring the security of remote learning systems, including data protection and safeguarding considerations
Governing board
The governing board is responsible for:
Monitoring the school’s approach to providing remote learning to ensure education remains as high quality as possible
Ensuring that staff are certain that remote learning systems are appropriately secure, for both data protection and safeguarding reasons
The government announced £1 billion of funding to support children and young people to catch up lost time after school closure. This is especially important for the most vulnerable and disadvantaged backgrounds.
Data protection
Processing personal data
Staff members may need to collect and/or share personal data such as email addresses as part of the remote learning system. If this processing is necessary for the school’s official functions, individuals won’t need to give permission for this to happen.
However, staff are reminded to collect and/or share as little personal data as possible online.
Keeping devices secure
All staff members will take appropriate steps to ensure their devices remain secure. This includes, but is not limited to:
Keeping the device password-protected – strong passwords are at least 8 characters, with a combination of upper and lower-case letters, numbers and special characters (e.g. asterisk or currency symbol)
Ensuring the hard drive is encrypted – this means if the device is lost or stolen, no one can access the files stored on the hard drive by attaching it to a new device
Making sure the device locks if left inactive for a period of time
Not sharing the device among family or friends
Installing antivirus and anti-spyware software
Keeping operating systems up to date – always install the latest updates
This policy will be reviewed as required with regard to ongoing changes in DfE guidance, Government directives and as a response to our liaison and monitoring of our children and families’ experiences of remote education during the COVID-19 pandemic and subsequent restrictions.
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 individual pupils are self-isolating, where national or local restrictions require entire cohorts (or bubbles) to remain at home.
Home and School Partnership
Haughmond Federation is committed to working in close partnership with families and recognises that each family is unique. This means that remote learning will look different for different families in order to suit their individual needs. Where possible, it is beneficial for young people to maintain a regular and familiar routine and we would recommend that each ‘school day’ maintains structure.
The remote curriculum: what is taught to pupils at home?
A weekly timetable is available on the Federation website under the remote learning tab from day one of isolation or a bubble closure. This will contain all of resources needed for each child but we will seek increasingly creative ways to cover a broad and balanced curriculum.
Our teachers and staff will provide structured education and support to children and families in a manner that does not seek to overwhelm them but does enable the continuation and continuity of learning for cohorts and classes that follows our intended school curriculum.
Flexibility of learning and expectations
We realise that the circumstances that cause our schools to close will affect families in a number of ways. In our planning, response to closure and expectations we recognise the need for flexibility and a willingness to adapt and hone our approach whilst prioritising the well-being of our children:
- Parents may be trying to work from home so access to technology as a family may be limited
- Parents may have two or more children trying to access technology and need to prioritise their requirements and studies
- Teachers may be trying to manage their home situation and the learning of their own children
- Systems may not always function as they should.
Accessing remote education: how will my child access any online remote education you are providing?
We will use the Remote Learning Page on the Federation websites to share the weekly timetables, resources, lesson activities, videos, demonstrations and learning links.
In addition, Microsoft Office 365 TEAMS will be used via teachers’ emails to provide some face to face “meetings” for children in their classes with their teachers.
Accessing remote education: our arrangements for remote education where digital or online access at home is difficult, not possible or not desired.
- We know that some pupils may not have suitable online access at home are we are taking a number of approaches to support the remote education of those children.
- We will provide all children with any printed materials needed. Teachers will contact parents via email and telephone to gauge preferred method of access for learning at home. Learning Packs will be provided and arrangements made to collect and drop off work on a weekly basis at the front of school without need for face to face meetings. These packs can include full access to printed copy of all resources being used in lessons.
- Completed work can be photographed/scanned and emailed back to teachers for feedback and marking. Similarly work packs can dropped back at school for marking when collecting the following week’s work pack.
- Where possible we will lend laptops to families where pupils have no devices and issue devices to those eligible and in need once school receives the relevant laptops to be issued by the government. Laptop loans may have to be limited depending upon the number of key worker and vulnerable children still attending school during closure.
How will my child be taught remotely?
We use a combination of the following approaches to teach pupils remotely:
- Weekly timetables on the school website will be used to share resources, lesson activities, demonstrations and learning links.
- Through online learning software used by the children in school also available at home (often used for homework) – school has subscriptions and children have their own logins to: TT Rockstar, Education City, Reading Eggs and Maths seeds Links to these are on the websites’ class pages.
- Recorded teaching including Oak National Academy lessons, video/audio recordings made by teachers
- Printed paper packs produced by teachers (e.g. workbooks, worksheets)
- Textbooks and reading books issued for pupils to have at home
- Commercially available websites supporting the teaching of specific subjects or areas, including video clips or sequences
- Project work and/or individualised interest and research activities
Engagement and feedback:
- We would like all children to undertake remote education for the stated amount of time each day
- We would like parents to support their children, for example, by setting routines to support your child’s education, assisting them in accessing tasks, providing a place to work comfortably and offering help, where needed, to complete tasks.
- We will check whether your children are engaging with their work through email, and regular feedback on work produced.
- If engagement is a concern, teachers will contact parents and carers by telephone.
- Staff will regularly carry out well-being telephone calls to parents and their children in order to gauge learning needs and to provide pastoral support to our families.
Assessing children’s work and progress
Feedback can take many forms and may not always mean extensive written comments for individual children. For example, whole-class feedback or quizzes marked automatically via digital platforms are also valid and effective methods, amongst many others.
We will provided feedback to children through one to one and whole class communications via email, live teaching, marked work packs and through our website pages.
Children will receive feedback on their work in a combination of ways; sometimes instantly, daily and at least weekly.
Additional support for pupils with particular needs: how we will work with parents to help children who need 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 children.
We will provide additional telephone and MS Teams meeting support from the class teacher, SENCo and Teaching Assistant.
We will offer school attendance, or partial attendance, if parents have not already taken it up but will be mindful of families’ needs and wants with regards to staying home and keeping safe.
We will adapt instructions and provide work appropriate to the stage of learning of the child.
Use of additional online educational games to support access and engagement with their learning.