Remote Education Provision: Information for Parents

Designated SMT Online Learning Lead Sarah Cox

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 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?

All students are emailed daily by the Remote Learning Team to their school email address. This email will include additional attachments of well-being and weekly assembly materials as well as FAQ sheets detailing support for any technical difficulties. Please judge how much each child completes each day according to the needs of your child. If your child requires any help with their lesson, they should email their class teacher or remotelearning@theappletonschool.org.

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 follow the same learning programmes and teach the same curriculum remotely as we do in school wherever possible and appropriate. However, we have needed to make some adaptations in a small number of subjects. For example, some practical subjects like Music will cover the same topics but focus on theory-based learning and Physical Education will include web links for online exercise videos at home.

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.

Secondary school-aged pupils not working towards formal qualifications this year (Years 7-9)

Pupils will follow lessons according to their weekly school timetable. There are five hours of scheduled learning each day. These lessons will have schedule a break of 10 minutes each hour to give pupils a break from their screens as well as the usual designated rest times for mid-morning break and lunchtimes. Additional pastoral and well-being materials are also sent to pupils.

Secondary school-aged pupils working towards formal qualifications this year (Years 10-13)

Pupils will follow lessons according to their weekly school timetable. There are five hours of scheduled learning each day. Lessons will have schedule a break of 10 minutes each hour to give pupils a break from their screens as well as the usual designated rest times for mid-morning break and lunchtimes. There will also be additional independent learning tasks for pupils in exam years to complete. Additional pastoral and well-being materials are also sent to pupils.

Accessing remote education

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

We have successfully established remote learning programmes using the Microsoft Teams platform. To access Microsoft Teams your child should go to https://teams.microsoft.com and then log in with their school email address and password. It is important that your child is already logged on to Microsoft Teams, ready to go, at the start of each lesson. If, for unforeseen circumstances, a live lesson is not possible, for example, due to staff illness, there will be assignment work set on Teams.

Your child should complete this work during the scheduled lesson time. If your child is still having difficulty with their school log in or password they should contact the ICT Technical team on: ICTTechnicalOffice@theappletonschool.org.

Some departments use additional online tools or digital platforms, to supplement their live lessons on Teams, including ‘TheEverLearner’, ‘HegartyMaths’, Accelerated Reader and ‘Seneca’. All pupils have been issued username and passwords for these websites. If your child requires any help with their lesson or using these websites they should email their class teacher or remotelearning@theappletonschool.org.

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:

If your child does not have suitable online access at home, please contact the school via the main school office and a member of the Remote Learning Team will contact you to co-ordinate a loan of a laptop or dongle device for the period of students’ remote learning. In the event of a whole school closure, please note that demand may exceed supply of these devices; in this event, the criteria for allocation of these devices will apply:

These IT devices will be allocated firstly to LAC, children who take free school meals and students on EHCP before any other pupils.

If pupils do not have suitable online access at home, they may be eligible to attend provision in person. This decision will be based on the needs of the child and the family as well as school centre factors. Pupils without online access and opting to work from home will be provided with printed resources such as textbooks and workbooks to structure their learning. They can still submit their work to their teacher by post / via the school office, or alternatively when they return to school. These pupils will be contacted weekly by a designated member of staff to support the child with their home learning engagement.

How will my child be taught remotely?

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

The Appleton School uses a range of the following approaches to teach pupils remotely. These will include:

Live teaching on Microsoft Teams (these online lessons will be the majority of a pupil’s learning programme)
Recorded teaching (e.g. Oak National Academy lessons, video/ audio narrated recordings made by class teachers)
Quizzes using other educational platforms such as Hegarty Maths, Everlearn and Seneca etc
Textbooks and reading books pupils have at home
Commercially available websites supporting the teaching of specific subjects or areas, including video clips and sequences
Printed paper packs produced by teachers (e.g. workbooks, worksheets)
Long term project work and/ or internet based activities

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?

Parents/carers should support their child with remote learning by offering an appropriate learning space where home learning can be completed.
Parents/ carers will need to provide their child with a suitable device for receiving lessons. This would normally be a desktop, laptop or tablet, but it can be a smartphone or compatible gaming device (e.g. X box). The device will need to be connected to the internet and have audio functionality. If there are any issues about ability to access IT, parents/ carers should inform the remote learning team and the Assistant Head Teacher will arrange for laptop access.
Parents/ carers are encouraged to support their child in maintaining the structure of their daily schedule, which follows your child’s usual school timetable.
Parents/carers are also encouraged to monitor completion of remote learning by asking them what they have learned, regularly checking their child’s email and TEAMs account. Parents/ carers should keep up to date with information shared by the school, particularly in instances of long-term closure, by reading all letters and emails sent.
Parents/ carers should ensure that their child behaves, concentrates and engages just as they would in a face-to-face lesson. This includes any communications within their online class teams’ message boards. As with all school-based communications, the content and language of the chat messages must be at all times be appropriate and the subject matter relate directly to your child’s classwork only.
Parents/carers should maintain communication with the school and report any remote learning issues to remotelearning@theappletonschool.org or via 01268 794215 if parents do not have internet access.
If parents/ carers have any Safeguarding issues during a school closure they should contact the school directly by phone during term time or report them to the relevant agencies:

EMERGENCY SAFEGUARDING SUPPORT:

Police: If a child is at risk of imminent harm – please call 999. Non urgent cases – please call 101
Children’s Social Care: Daytime call 0345 603 7627 and ask for the CHILDREN AND FAMILIES HUB PRIORITY LINE Out of hours call: 0345 606 1212
Emotional Wellbeing and Mental Health Services: Main line: 03003001600 Crisis line: 0300 5551201

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

All teaching staff take registers of attendance for remote learning every lesson. This attendance and engagement with home learning is monitored by the Pastoral Co-ordinators and Year Managers and is, in turn, overseen by an Assistant Headteacher.
If a pupil in a teacher’s class is not accessing the remote learning (as identified by a pupil failing to complete the mini-assessment or non-attendance to live lessons), the member of staff will alert the pastoral and remote learning teams. The teacher should also follow up from a class teacher and departmental perspective. This will result in a member of staff contacting home to check if there are any obstacles to accessing home learning and if further support is required. If there are any issues discovered about a pupil’s ability to access IT the member of staff will inform the remote learning team and the Assistant Head Teacher will arrange for laptop access.
If a pupil is repeatedly failing to complete remote learning that has been set in a subject, a member of SMT will contact the pupils’ parent/carer to offer additional support.

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. For example, whole-class feedback or quizzes marked automatically via digital platforms are also valid and effective methods, amongst many others. Our approach to feeding back on pupil work is as follows:

All pupils will receive weekly feedback (timetable permitting) on their progress in their subjects. The Appleton School uses a wide range of the following approaches to feedback to pupils remotely. These will include:

Verbal individual/ class feedback through Live teaching on Microsoft Teams
Question and answer sessions both audio and written through Live teaching
Whole class recorded feedback (video/ audio narrated recordings made by class teachers)
Marked feedback via assignments or assessment weeks on the Microsoft eams’ educational platform or directly to a pupil’s school email address.
Marked feedback via educational websites such as Hegarty Maths, Everlearn and Seneca or shared via Google Classroom, Google drive etc.

Additional support for pupils with particular needs

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:

Vulnerable pupils and pupils with EHCP/ SEND needs are offered the opportunity for on-site provision.
Pastoral staff and LSAs are contacting all vulnerable/ SEND pupils and their families who are home learning at least weekly with telephone calls and emails to check their learning progress and give emotional support.
LSA are also attending online core lessons for EHCP pupils.
Live lessons will provide opportunities for interactivity, including questioning and reflective discussion as well as the provision of scaffolded practice to support pupils with particular needs.

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 are set a learning programme of work via Microsoft Teams to ensure that they access a well-sequenced curriculum that covers the same work as their peers. This learning programme will include a range of teaching approaches including live lessons, recorded teaching, activities on educational websites and assignments along with well being, pastoral and technical support materials. This information is emailed to your child daily via their school email address with all resources accessed via Microsoft Teams. Pupils are able to submit their work to their class teachers for feedback via this platform and a pastoral co-ordinator will make contact to check that they have been able to access their online programme. Please note that the majority of lessons will not be live lessons unless a whole year group bubble has been closed.