Remote Education

Home Learning Information

During a period of school closure staff, at Houghton Conquest Primary School, are committed to providing education and support to our children using remote learning.

All learning will be conducted using Google Classroom. This will allow staff to keep in daily contact in a professional and confidential manner with their class.

Flexibility of Learning

We realise that the circumstances that cause our school to close will affect families in a number of ways. In our planning and expectations, we are aware of the need for flexibility from all sides:

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 the needs of young people studying towards exams or accreditations.
Teachers may be trying to manage their home situation and the learning of their own children.
Systems may not always function as they should. An understanding of, and willingness to adapt to, these difficulties on all sides is essential for success.

What is Remote Learning?

Remote learning is where pupils cannot be physically present at school. As children cannot access school to learn, their learning will take place online.
Teachers will assign lessons and accompanying resources that link directly to the long-term curriculum plan for their year group so that children can continue to access relevant objectives and ‘keep up’.
Teachers will provide adapted learning resources for children with additional learning needs.
Work will be set by teachers using a learning platform: Google Classroom.

What is Google Classroom and how does it work?

Google Classroom enables teachers to create an online classroom area in which they can manage all the documents that their pupils need.
Teachers set activities within the ‘classwork’ tab, but can share information, announcements, web-links and questions within the ‘stream’ tab.
Pupils can see assignments on the to-do page, in the class stream, or on the class calendar.
Teachers can create assignments, send announcements, and instantly start class discussions. Pupils can share resources with each other and interact in the class stream. Teachers can also quickly see who has or hasn’t completed the work, and give direct, real-time feedback.

How will work be set?

Should remote learning need to be set for a class, the work for the day in Literacy, Maths and other subjects will be posted on Google Classrooms each morning of closure.

Each day, children will log on and find their activities for the day. Information will contain:

All website links needed to access home learning resources along with clear information about the learning for that week. This will include reference to daily tasks for relevant subjects
Links to daily Literacy lessons – a mixture of pre-recorded teaching videos and Oak National Academy following the school’s own curriculum plans
Links to daily Maths lessons – these will be pre-recorded teaching videos that link to our maths mastery curriculum, Power Maths; however, teachers may provide further resources such as those from Oak National Academy.
Worksheets to accompany lessons will be available to download. (They will be in the form of a Google Doc; these can be converted to a Word document if necessary).
Parents/children will not be required to print out any worksheets if they are unable to do so. Worksheets will simply be used as a guide for presenting tasks. Recording work on paper will be sufficient. (A ‘Remote Education’ exercise book can be provided for pupils to take home if requested).

Teachers may use written explanations, pre-recorded videos and video clips to help children understand what it is they have to do. They may also post links to video lessons to follow. Although teachers may not be undertaking live lessons, there will be opportunities for them to interact live with their class through class meets, PSHE lessons and story times, etc; links for these will be posted accordingly.

Most activities can be completed online and teachers will be able to see the work via Google Classroom. Sometimes a task might ask pupils to carry out an experiment or practical task e.g. growing seeds, organising tins and packets according to weight, or drawing or making a model. These tasks can be photographed and uploaded onto Google Classroom for the teacher to see. Teachers will post questions in the session boxes for your child to interact with; this will help us know if your child has engaged with their learning.

What is expected of pupils in EYFS?

In Foundation the majority of learning takes place through play.

In the event of a full or partial closure we will provide daily, phonics, maths and literacy ideas for purposeful play and creative activities related to areas from the Early Years Framework.
We will also provide pre-recorded teacher videos of the daily phonics lesson with suggestions for follow up activities and provide guidance for practical maths, reading and writing activities that follow the same sequence of learning that we would be doing at school.
Children’s work should be shared with teachers through the Google Classroom platform. Parents can upload videos, photos and written observations and teachers will provide feedback.

For our pre-school children they will be set activities by their key worker that match their individual needs.

What is expected of pupils in KS1 and KS2?

The expectation of lessons will be:

Daily Maths lesson
Daily Literacy lesson
Daily phonics lesson (Key Stage 1)
Each day there will be a lesson for at least one of the foundation subjects linked to the Creative Curriculum topic (science, history, geography, music, computing and art).

Content for Maths – The Power Maths scheme is followed across school and resources will be posted that link to the same sequence of lessons being used in school. Pre-recorded teaching videos will be used to support the lesson content. In the event of a partial or full closure, or a child self-isolating, the teacher will inform parents which lessons the class are working on in school so that the home learning videos and resources can be used.

Content for Phonics – Teachers will upload links to activities, pre-recorded videos and resources based on whichever spelling patterns and sounds are being studied.

Content for Literacy – In the event of a full or partial closure, teachers will provide guidance about the Literacy focus for each day. This will include details about shared reading activities, GPS (Grammar, Punctuation and Spelling) and writing. Teachers will post a daily pre-recorded teaching video to support the children’s learning.

Suggested Daily Timetable for ‘Home Learning’

Please see our Remote Learning Plan listed above, for a suggested timetable for your child’s age group.

Government guidance on the amount of remote education provided is as follows (minimum of):

Key stage 1: 3 hours a day, on average across the cohort, with fewer hours for younger children
Key stage 2: 4 hours a day
Key stages 3 and 4: 5 hours a day

Submitting Work

Ideally work should be submitted daily when it is completed as teachers will be able to respond to this in a more timely manner and offer support should it be necessary. However, we understand that with home pressures, this may not always be possible.

Please make sure that your child only sends completed work. To help inform our teachers as to whether your child is engaging, please respond to the questions that are posted, within the children’s classwork, on Google Classroom.

Contact with teachers

Teachers will respond promptly, within reason, to requests for support from families at home. However, in the case of self-isolation for individual pupils, teachers will be working from 8.45am – 3.45pm Monday to Friday and therefore will not be able to respond immediately to messages or submitted work.
In the event of whole class isolation, teachers will be available via Google Classroom during the school day. At other times, they will be preparing work and responding to the activities set.
In the event of a full or partial closure, teachers will aim to hold up to two whole class live sessions on Google Meet a week. The purpose of these will be for the class to all be in contact together providing an opportunity for the teacher to summarise the learning for that week and for children to share and celebrate work that they have done. It also gives opportunities for the class to share emotions and feelings and discuss PSHE matters. Timings for the sessions for each class will be staggered to support families with access to only one device. Links will be provided for parents and children to follow.

Monitoring Engagement with Remote Education

It is important that children engage with the remote education provided so that they don’t fall behind with their learning; however we do acknowledge that each family’s home circumstances are unique and there may be factors that affect engagement with home learning. These may include parents working from home or limited access to technology amongst other things.

Communication is essential and we would ask that if there are circumstances that mean a child cannot engage at least partially with the remote education that their parent speaks to the teacher.

Teachers will be able to monitor children’s engagement in activities and their understanding. They will be able to determine whether a child is engaging sufficiently, (e.g. Are they logging on every day? Are they viewing the files teachers upload?) Is the work submitted completed to the best of that child’s ability and uploaded on time? If we have concerns about levels of engagement, then we will make contact with parents so that we can work together to find a means of providing remote education that enables quality learning to take place.

Passwords

Passwords have been shared, if you are having difficulty in accessing the platform please contact your class teacher.

Technical Issues

Every effort will be made by staff to ensure that work is set promptly on appropriate platforms but school cannot guarantee that the chosen platforms will work on all devices. Should accessing work be an issue, parents should contact school promptly and alternative solutions will be made available (e.g. paper copies of work, loan of iPads etc.). These will be discussed on case-by-case basis.

GOVERNMENT EXPECTATIONS FOR REMOTE LEARNING

The Government have provided guidance for parents to help support children’s remote education during coronavirus

Houghton Conquest Remote Learning Guidance Remote Education Learning Plan – Full Closure