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Remote Education Provision

Introduction:

This information is intended to provide clarity and transparency to pupils and parents or carers about what to expect from remote education if local or national 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 document. For support materials, please see other information contained on our website or contact the school office.

The remote curriculum: what is taught to students at home?

Students follow the same timetable that they have in school when they are at home. This is delivered through their teachers scheduling form time from 8.35am which includes activities based on student wellbeing, current affairs, reading and numeracy. Form time is followed by 3 x 100 minute lessons per day taught by the student’s usual teacher. Each lesson is a combination of live teaching, digital interaction and independent tasks, there are multiple opportunities for staff to assess student understanding and progress which prompts regular feedback. Our aim is to deliver a meaningful and ambitious curriculum covering all subjects.

What should my child expect from immediate remote education in the first day or two of students being sent home?

Learning will focus on a full day’s learning that is equivalent to school based learning – this equates to 5 hours of time that your child should be learning for, outside of the scheduled breaks.

Accessing remote education

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

We will continue to use the platform that we already use to support learning in school – Microsoft Teams. We use this platform for homework, and other activities throughout the year, to ensure students and parents are confident with the use of it in the event that we need to close a bubble, cohort or the majority of the school.

All students have a Microsoft Account with a unique username and password. Teachers send ‘Teams invites’ to your child’s MS account to invite them to live sessions with the safety and security of Office 365.

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 children may not have suitable online access at home. We take the following approached to support those children to access remote education:

  • We run digital access surveys regularly so that we know any barriers our students are facing and can identify solutions.
  • We have a number of devices allocated to use from the DfE that we can loan to parents. Should you need a device, please contact the school office.
  • When possible, we work with network providers to support parents to access internet, including the top up of data allowances.
  • The definition of vulnerable children now includes those without access to suitable devices for learning and so you may be able to access a place for your child in the on-site provision. Please contact the school office to alert us to this, if we have not been in touch with you already.
  • Should you need a pack of learning printed, please contact the school office who will work with teachers to arrange for a pack of learning to be created and distributed to you. This will follow your child’s timetable. Each week you should return the completed pack to the school office and collect the following week’s pack.

How will my child be taught remotely?

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

  • Provide live lessons throughout the day that follow the curriculum that students would have accessed in school
  • Provide follow up learning tasks through MS Teams including written feedback to submitted work
  • Share video content via other platforms such as school YouTube accounts
  • Use other resources to support explanations such as White Rose Maths videos
  • Share useful websites and other resources that may support parents and students at home

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?

We expect our students to fully engage with remote learning unless they are unwell or unable to engage for other reasons. Attendance and engagement in the 100 minute lessons is monitored using a digital engagement feature on Microsoft Teams. Non-attendance is tracked and monitored by teaching staff and non-attendance is then followed up.

Where a child is not engaging, or is not engaging at the standard that we would expect from them, we will contact families to understand the barriers and provide support to alleviate these.

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

Engagement is monitored through the insights feature on Microsoft Teams. We will follow our school absence procedures to ensure we know where your child is and the reason for not logging onto to their Teams session- this will include a phone call home.

Other forms of communication with parents include emails and telephone calls as well as the use of ParentMail. We are also currently planning virtual parent’s evenings.

Throughout any period of remote learning, it is essential that you continue to work with the school to ensure that your child is able to successfully return to face to face learning when it is safe to do so.

If local restrictions allow and we believe it is absolutely necessary, the school will also visit the family home to ensure that we are able to ascertain any issues relating to remote learning as well as your family well-being and provide support where practically possible.

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, we may use MS Forms to create quizzes that are marked automatically, questioning during live lessons sessions as well as giving written feedback to work uploaded to MS Teams.

We will apply the principles of our school based assessment policy to all learning to ensure that the students continue to make links between remote learning and school base learning. We will conduct formal assessment where we can so that we can track progress from starting points and consider where students are in relation to end of year targets as well as identifying any vulnerable knowledge that needs some intervention. 

Additional support for children with particular needs

How will you work with me to help my child who needs additional support from adults at home to access remote learning?

We recognise that some students, for example those with SEND, they 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 children in the follow ways:

  • Support staff will continue to provide intervention materials for children through Teams
  • Where children have a specific plan, we will endeavor to provide these in a virtual environment
  • Students with EHCPs should be in school where it is safe to do so, and we will endeavor to provide the support outlined on the plan. Where students with EHCPs are learning from home, we will upload interventions through Teams
  • We will provide further support and interventions through our SEND area on the website and signpost families to these for further support for areas such as SEMH (Social Emotional and Mental Health) needs
  • Parents may also request contact from the SENDCo to seek advice and support where needed- please contact the school office

Remote education for self-isolating pupils

individual students need to self-isolate but the majority of their peer group remains in school, how remote education is provided will differ slightly from our approach for the whole school. This is due to the challenges of teaching students both at home and in school. Where possible, teachers will live stream lessons to students at home.

Digital Wellbeing

In order to support students to prioritise their well-being the pastoral team are engaging students in multiple activities:

  • During form time each day, students take part in​a range of activities which include current affairs discussions, wellbeing techniques including mindfulness strategies, organisation skills and time to enjoying reading.
  • Heads of house ​are in regular​ contact with the students in their houses through both weekly emails and a weekly newsletter full of fun activities and guidance on how to access support if they need it.
  • There are multiple links attached to the RGS website to direct students where to go when they need support. ​
  • Each week phone calls are made to DfE designated vulnerable students as well as those students who have been identified as requiring addition support in order to check on their well-being.
  • Students are still engaging with assemblies which share ideas to maintain their physical and mental health.