REMOTE LEARNING

Pupils can access their remote learning via Microsoft Teams.

Information for parents and carers

Pupils may need to learn remotely if they are sent home from school to self-isolate, or if there is a full lockdown. 

The following information is a brief summary of how your child will learn at home. More detail is included in the school’s Remote Learning Policy.

The remote curriculum: what is taught to pupils at home

When pupils are sent home to self-isolate, they will be provided with details of how they will be taught. 

The arrangements are different according to your child’s age.

Children in Early Years and Year 1 will be sent home a work pack.

In Reception the children will be doing a mixture of practical and screen time activities. The learning provided will give the children the opportunity to develop their basic skills in all areas. Every day the children will receive a pre-recorded morning greeting, a maths session and a phonics session – there is a video for each ability level in phonics. There is also a daily story and a story of the week which the children are expected to listen to at different times in the day as they would do in class. The videos link to the learning packs where the children will have an opportunity to practise their counting, writing and creative skills. All the links for the videos are uploaded onto class dojo and parents are actively encouraged to send videos and pictures of their child’s learning daily.

 In year 1 the children will be following a weekly timetable with a balanced curriculum giving numerous opportunities to develop their learning and skills in all areas. There will be 3 prerecorded sessions every day taught by the class teacher to support the children with their learning. The links to the Maths, Literacy and Phonics sessions will uploaded on class dojo every day. The expectation is children will gradually build up their screen time- for the rest of the day the children have been provided materials to help with their creative learning. 

Pupils in Years 2-6  will be provided with specific information including the MS Teams sites that they will need to use .

All pupils will be provided with any materials that they need, including work packs and stationery items.

All pupils will have a personal reading book to continue reading at home. Please continue to listen to your child reading every day and encourage them to talk about their books. It is also important that children in Years 2 – 6 practice spellings, their times tables and learn by heart facts on a daily basis.

The expectation is that pupils will start remote learning as soon as their period of self- isolation begins. 

Remote teaching and learning time each day

As far as possible, we expect that pupils will spend the same amount of time working on a remote education day as they would in school.  This is because they will be following the usual school timetable for their lessons and completing independent learning / homework that arises from them.

In the early years, children’s learning will be more practically based but will follow the same curriculum that is used in face-to-face learning.

Include information about breakdown of remote learning day for early years/ Year 1 / Years 2 and above.

Accessing remote education

Remote lessons will be delivered using Microsoft Teams (MS Teams) to pupils in Years 2 -6 Your son/daughter has been taught how to access the site and how to login for lessons.

We will continue to use learning platforms including  White Rose Maths, Times Table Rock Stars, Accelerated Reader, Century AI and BBC. Pupils have been shown how to access these sites. Materials from Oak National Academy may be used on occasion to support pupils’ learning.

EYFS and Y1 provision

• Record sessions on YouTube from the class teacher
• Class dojo
• Materials provided in home learning packs

We are very grateful to parents for providing devices on which their children can access lessons and resources. We recognise that some pupils may not have suitable online access at home. 

Please inform the school office (office@thornbury.staracademies.org ) if your child does not have a laptop/tablet on which to work, or if you do not have internet access at home. We will do our best to support you.

If pupils do not have online access, they will be provided with hard copy work packs. 

Pupils who cannot submit work online will be asked to keep all their work in their exercise books / workbooks and arrangements will be made for this to be delivered to their teachers.

Remote teaching

In Years 2-6 Remote teaching will be delivered through live lessons in the vast majority of cases. This will involve simultaneous direct teaching by class teachers (who could be teaching from the physical classroom or from home if self-isolating) to their pupils (who could be learning in the physical classroom or at home).

Direct input from the teacher may be supplemented with some recorded material (such as video lessons from Oak National Academy, or videos recorded  by class teachers which may be the most appropriate way of teaching particular aspects of work.)

Pupils will need to spend some parts of lessons writing in their workbooks or completing activities that involve physical resources. These will be provided by the school. Some activities will involve pupils completing work on their devices and saving or uploading it. 

Some subjects, such as PE, do not lend themselves to online learning in the same way as others. Teachers will take into account the difficulties pupils may have in completing physical activity in a confined space and provide alternative suitable home learning  such as videoed exercise lessons.

Engagement and feedback

We have the same high expectations of pupils’ behaviour when they are learning remotely as we do when they are learning in school. The STAR values should be consistently maintained. All pupils have been taught the protocols for working online and staying safe. Codes of conduct for remote learning have been given to pupils, parents and staff. The school will alert you in the event of poor behaviour or non-attendance.

We value your support for your child’s wellbeing and learning. Please continue to ensure that they follow good routines, including getting enough sleep and time away from screens. 

We will keep a careful check on your child’s remote learning. We will inform you by a telephone call if your child misses and lessons that they are expected to attend. We will phone your child at least once per week during their time learning remotely to check on their progress and wellbeing. We will inform you if we have concerns about your child’s work. 

Assessment and feedback

Your child will work in a variety of ways when they are learning remotely. Sometimes they will submit assessments by One Note and these will be reviewed by their teacher. Sometimes they will complete work on paper / in exercise books that will be submitted to school in hard copy form.

Feedback can take many forms. Sometimes your child will receive written individual feedback. Some feedback will be given on a whole-class basis and sometimes your child may complete quizzes that are marked automatically via digital platforms.

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:

• Provision on individual/ small group support during MS Teams lessons
• Provision of differentiated work matched to individual targets
• Enhanced induction for MS Teams access