Remote Education

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.

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?

• Letter sent to parents directing them to online resources that can be used (e.g. Oak National Academy)
• Topics in class identified on letter so parents can select most appropriate resources to use.
• Parents can upload work completed or pictures of activities completed to Tapestry if they choose to. Teachers will endeavour to provide feedback (positive praise, acknowledgement of work completed) on uploads. There may be a delay in this as teachers are still teaching a full timetable in school.

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?

• Tapestry will be used to provide online learning for pupils and families self-isolating.
• English and Maths activities will be shared – these will either be a weekly plan or daily activities. Teachers to write clear explanations of exactly what needs completing.
• Activities being shared will be as close as possible to the activities being completed in class to ensure that children ‘keep up’.
• Class activities will be adapted to be online only or activities that don’t need resources. Paper packs can be distributed to families (most families live very locally to the school so these can be delivered by school admin staff or sent via post) if essential.
• Oak Academy resources and videos may be used to supplement content from teachers. We will add our own activities to be completed after completing learning from the videos.
• Uploads to Tapestry from parents to share learning and ask questions. Teachers to provide feedback on all uploads from parents – praise and suggest next steps. Responses to parents will be as quick as possible, bearing in mind teachers still have a full teaching timetable.
• Provision will be mainly offline or videos etc that can be accessed from any device.

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:

Year R and Year 1 – 3 hours

Accessing remote education

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

All online remote education is provided through Tapestry. All parents have a log on to this platform.

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:

• Any family struggling with access to online education should contact the school office. The school can provide tailored support to families to ensure that all pupils are able to access learning (for example lending devices belonging to the school, supplying internet routers, increasing mobile data allowances).

How will my child be taught remotely?

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

• recorded teaching (e.g. recordings made by teachers to explain or introduce tasks/concepts Oak National Academy lessons, video/audio)
• printed paper packs produced by teachers (e.g. worksheets)
• commercially available websites, such as BBC Bitesize and White Rose Maths, supporting the teaching of specific subjects or areas, including video clips or sequences
• videos and online games/activities from a range of sources (e.g. phonics play)

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?

A daily update posted via Tapestry on the work completed that day. This doesn’t need to be a commentary but could just be a picture or two (e.g. of the Maths activity). This enables us to keep track of the children’s progress, assess where they are and set appropriate work for them.

Due to the age of the pupils (Year R and Year 1), parents will need to support pupils in understanding tasks. Our aim is then to set work (e.g. worksheets, practical activities) that they can then complete independently.

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

Due to the young age of the children, parents will be responsible for uploading pictures of the work completed and so will know how their child is engaging with their work.

Teachers will monitor who has uploaded work and will contact families where it is not clear whether children have engaged in learning (e.g. there have been no posts on Tapestry). We recognise that the engagement of all families in home learning will be different and so aim to provide tailored support and guidance to all.

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:

• Teachers will comment on posts uploaded by parents. This may include identifying what the child has done well and offering suggestions for extension/improvement/correction.
• Teachers will respond to all comments/questions and uploads on Tapestry as quickly as possible, but will aim to be within 24 hours.

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:

• As all of our pupils are in Year R or Year 1, they are unlikely to be able to access remote education without support from adults at home. Therefore all activities set, take this into account.
• We aim to set as much of our work as ‘offline’ as possible. This should help to limit screen time for the children and also allow them to complete activities without needing a tablet/laptop or adult support all the time. Additional optional activities may be included (e.g. playing online games) that will add to or extend the learning.
• We will try to set activities that the children can complete independently after a little support/explanation from you. Some work will be introducing new learning but we will make sure you have all the resources you need to help with this.
• Recorded learning (either from the class teachers or from other sources such as Oak National Academy) aim to reduce the demand on parents, allowing teachers to provide explanations of new learning and guidance for tasks.
• Pupils with additional needs will received tailored activities and additional support as needed.
• Interventions for pupils needing additional support (e.g. in phonics) will continue online with recorded videos and a range of online and offline activities.

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?

Stage 1 - Children who are unable to attend school because they have symptoms of Coronavirus and are awaiting a test OR children who are at home self-isolating because a family member has symptoms and the family member is awaiting a test result.

Curriculum Provision

• Letter sent to parents directing them to online resources that can be used (e.g. Oak National Academy)
• Topics in class identified on letter so parents can select most appropriate resources to use.
• Parents can upload work completed or pictures of activities completed to Tapestry if they choose to. Teachers will endeavour to provide feedback (positive praise, acknowledgement of work completed) on uploads. There may be a delay in this as teachers are still teaching a full timetable in school.

Pupil Welfare

• A member of school staff (likely admin staff) will call each family at least once a week to check on welfare.
• We will use resources and lessons from Jigsaw PSHE scheme to support with pupil wellbeing activities if needed.

Stage 2 - Children who are unable to attend school because a family member/close contact has received a positive result for Coronavirus and/or a child has been advised to self-isolate (inc quarantine upon return from a holiday).

Curriculum Provision

• Tapestry will be used to provide online learning for pupils and families self-isolating.
• English and Maths activities will be shared – these will either be a weekly plan or daily activities. Teachers to write clear explanations of exactly what needs completing.
• Activities being shared will be as close as possible to the activities being completed in class to ensure that children ‘keep up’.
• Class activities will be adapted to be online only or activities that don’t need resources. Paper packs can be distributed to families (most families live very locally to the school so these can be delivered by school admin staff or sent via post) if essential.
• Oak Academy resources and videos may be used to supplement content from teachers. We will add our own activities to be completed after completing learning from the videos.
• Uploads to tapestry from parents to share learning and ask questions. Teachers to provide feedback on all uploads from parents – praise and suggest next steps. Responses to parents will be as quick as possible, bearing in mind teachers still have a full teaching timetable.
• Provision will be mainly offline or videos etc that can be accessed from any device.

Pupil Welfare

• A member of school staff (preferably class teacher or LSA) will call each family each week to check on welfare and provide additional support.
• Communication through tapestry with class teachers – staff to provide feedback and engage in discussion with parents through comments on observations.
• Use resources and lessons from Jigsaw PSHE scheme to support with pupil wellbeing activities if needed.