Remote Learning
At Tibberton First School our pupils have access to a number of remote learning platforms such as Purple Mash Computing, Times Table Rockstars and Microsoft Teams.
Our whole school community went on a real journey through the COVID pandemic, changing and adapting to remote learning. Our remote learning offer was vital in ensuring our pupils and families were able to maintain their educational journeys as far as possible in the most challenging of circumstances. The excellent participation from our families meant that the lost learning for our pupils was absolutely minimised.
An external 'Leadership Review of Remote Education' assessed our offer as strong in all areas (see report below).
We are proud of the impromptu feedback our community sent us during the COVID pandemic, please take a look at the document below.
These platforms continue support our pupils with their current curriculum work, home learning and are also available in the event of future extended absences or school closures.
Our ability to move to remote learning, as needed, is an important part of our school offer:
- It supports our desire to serve our pupils and community with Grace
- It helps ensure consistency in the approach to remote learning for pupils who aren’t in school
- It supports the provision of our planned curriculum
Individual absence: For those pupils needing to remain at home through illness or in self-isolation, for an extended period, teachers will provide a simple overview of the sessions they are missing and provide copies of the work planned (for the rest of the class) to the child.
For extended absence of a bubble or larger group:
Sessions will revert to remote learning. This will be delivered through Microsoft Teams, alongside Tapestry for our Reception pupils. Our school websites and email systems will provide a backup for any issues which arise with Microsoft Teams. These sessions will follow the normal curriculum as closely as possible.
Digital Education Platforms: This is a place where pupils learning experience at home can continue as close to normal as possible. These are purpose-built platforms built for remote learning in a way school websites are not: allowing direct teacher-pupil communication, personalised feedback and the setting of individualised tasks.
We have implemented access to Office 365 Education and Microsoft Teams, for our school federation. This will support the learning of new skills and concepts through any closure, rather than a focus on consolidations of knowledge, helping support ongoing pupil progress.
What will learning look like? Through our learning platform we will provide an ongoing curriculum for our pupils, as close as possible to that provided in school. When Classes are closed to work remotely this will consist of at least four daily sessions: spelling/phonics, English, Maths and one other subject.
We will need to make adaptations to our ‘normal’ curriculum to ensure some subjects can be delivered remotely (for example our families many not have the same equipment and resources available at home). Our ‘spiral curriculum’ means that where skills are missed pupils will have the opportunity to revisit them at a later date.
As per DFE guidance we would expect the above sessions to take approximately 3 hrs for our KS1 pupils and approximately 4 hours for our KS2 pupils.
When whole classes move to remote learning, staff will run daily live sessions, where pupils will be able to continue their learning, talk about their work, ask any questions, see their teachers and friends and enjoy an end of the day story.
Due to the age of our First School age pupils we do not have an expectation of live, whole class lessons for every session. Recorded teaching clips may be made available through our learning platform alongside other high quality digital resources to support learning.
Every child will be given access to a workbook at home to support their learning.
Roles and responsibilities
Teachers
When providing remote learning, teachers must be available between 8:45am - 3pm. (When a teacher is balancing home learning alongside in-school critical/vulnerable worker care during lockdowns then availability will be restricted for those home learning. We will endeavour to respond to enquiries ASAP).
If they’re unable to work for any reason during this time, for example due to sickness or caring for a dependent, they should report this using the normal absence procedure.
When providing remote learning, teachers are responsible for:
- Setting daily work, for their class and teaching groups in line with that planned for a normal school day, ensuring meaningful and ambitious activities in a range of subjects.
- When this work needs to be set - either by 6pm the day before (when work is set on a daily basis) or by Sunday at 6pm (for the whole week if work is being set on a weekly basis).
- Where work should be uploaded - onto the learning platform.
Assessment and Accountability:
- Access to completed work from pupils will be the Learning Platform, or through work completed in ‘Bubble Home Learning Workbooks’.
- Feedback will be ongoing via the learning platform. Pupils can also access regular, digital drop-in sessions which will provide opportunity to share work and receive individual guidance/feedback. We will endeavour to provide feedback within 48hrs for work submitted by the given deadlines.
Keeping in touch with pupils who aren’t in school and their parents:
- Feedback will be ongoing via the learning platform, with feedback provided for daily assignments.
- Regular daily contact is available for all pupils/families. If contact not reciprocated then an email will be sent in the first instance, then a phone call will be made phone (at least weekly).
- Expectation is to answer emails/messages from parents and pupils within 24hrs (excluding weekends) but NOT outside of working hours.
- For any complaints or concerns shared by parents and pupils make a record of conversation and follow school policy – for any safeguarding concerns, see section below
- Behavioural issues; staff will continue to hold pupils to the high expectations as to which they are held when in school, such as completing work on time and good manners.
Attending virtual meetings with staff, parents and pupils:
- Dress code as per normal dress code in school
- Please ensure that there is nothing inappropriate in the background and other members of your household are aware you are on a call.
- If teachers are still working in school, while supporting part of their class working remotely, teaching assistants will be able to be deployed to support remote learning (see below).
Pupils and parents
Staff can expect pupils learning remotely to:
- Join live meetings
- Be contactable during the school day – although due to their age in a First School, they will not always be in front of a device
- Complete work to the deadline set by teachers
- Seek help if they need it, from teachers or teaching assistants
- Alert teachers if they’re not able to complete work
Staff can expect parents with children learning remotely to:
- Make the school aware if their child is sick or otherwise can’t complete work
- Seek help from the school if they need it
- Support their child in the completion of the work set
- Confidential communications should make use of class emails rather than the Teams chat feed.
We are aware that our parents all have differing responsibilities and commitments upon their time, particularly during national lockdown periods. We understand that this means our families may need to be flexible towards home learning and we will do our best to support this.
Governing board
The governing board is responsible for:
- Monitoring the schools’ 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.
Data protection
Accessing personal data and 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
- Ensuring that encrypted memory sticks are used for confidential materials Making sure the device locks if left inactive for a period of time
- Not sharing the device among family or friends
- Keeping operating systems up to date – always install the latest updates
Safeguarding
Our Designated Safe Lead is Mr Alex Gromski. The School’s Deputy Designated Safeguarding Leads are Mr Josh Uren and Mrs Rhiannon Jordan. Please contact a DSL should you have any safeguarding concerns. Contact can be made through the schools’ office emails.
Remote access to key safeguarding records are in place to support the DSL and SLT team in the advent of remote learning and school closures.
Supporting access to remote education
Clear communication with all our families is crucial to identify those struggling with limited access to online access at home. We have secured SIM cards with free data allowances which are available upon request and are able to make targeted provision with the loan of laptops/tablets if necessary.
Printed materials are also available on request on a weekly basis. Non-digital work can then also be submitted on a weekly basis when new packs are received.
Supporting pupils with particular needs:
We recognise that some pupils, for example those with SEND needs, may not be able to access remote learning 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:
- Targeted work
- Individual support as needed
- Digital targeted support
- Concrete resources can be made available
- Pupils with an EHCP will have a priority school place in the advent of a national lockdown. We do reserve the right to risk assess access, should pupils behavioural needs place staff/peers at additional risk during the COVID pandemic.