Remote Education - 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?

On the first day we will aim to share a timetable for the week. Your child will have an exercise book to write in and this will have all of their login and password details in.

• Lessons will be posted on the ‘Classroom’ section of Google Classrooms and will take the form of ‘Slides’ initially. After preparation all slides will have a full teacher voiceover, with some showing the teacher modelling what to do. Any delay will be based on us working to get lessons ready and to ensure all pupils have the technology they require.

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 are teaching the same curriculum that we would normally deliver in school wherever possible. Some subjects may have to be delivered in a slightly different way to account for home learning, such as PE or Design Technology. The sort of adaptations we might have to make would be due to the limitations of the home, for example in PE a full lesson of gymnastics would not be possible.

• Apart from where we have to make adaptations, we will endeavour to keep as close to a ‘normal’ day as we can. You will be able to see the planned learning for the week in the weekly timetable that will be posted on a Monday morning each week.

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:

Accessing remote education

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

The digital platform we have selected to use is Google Classroom. You can access the platform by following this link https://classroom.google.com . All pupils in our school have received a home learning book to support them in working from home. In the front of this book there are all the logins and passwords for your child's accounts on the online tools that we use. 

If these have been lost or misplaced please contact us at [email protected] to request a new one.  

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:

• The school has secured access to a number of Chromebooks that we are able to lend to families who may need one.
• We are able to give a limited number of sim cards to boost data access for parents
• We are also able to apply for additional data support for families who are receiving FSM and who do not have access to the internet.
• If there is is a long wait for support with data, or if a parent prefers, we can also provide pupils with printed materials to support their learning at home.
• Your child will still get a phone call each week from the class teacher where they can discuss their learning.

How will my child be taught remotely?

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

• Recorded teaching sessions to allow all our community to access them at a time that works best for their family
• We also use some lessons take from the Oak National Academy Programme
• Tapestry for EYFS, Maths Whizz, MyOn and TTRockstars are also used to support learning at home.
• Where requested, packs of paper based work

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?

Pupils learning at home at Primary School age will rquire some support and encouragement. As you can imagine, the further we move down the school age groups, the greater the requirement for adult help.

Each week, on a Monday, we will share a timetable with our pupils. Please note the curricula areas the class will cover, this will be the work that is posted online on that day.

We also ask that children are encouraged to attend our live registration sessions every  morning and our feedback and story time at the end of the day. These daily sessions will help support your child with any misconceptions they may have.

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

Honilands will be making regular weekly calls home to check our pupils wellbeing and to offer them and their families support and advice.

Attendance at the daily register is also logged as is engagement with the work online.

If your child is not engaging with home learning then you will receive a call from one of our Senior Leaders to help support you in finding solutions to overcome the barriers to learning.

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:

• We will give daily feedback to pupils. Each day there will be a meeting with the 6 pupils and the teacher.
• There will also be whole class feedback sessions live at 3.00pm everyday before storytime
• Each week children will submit a couple of pieces of work online allowing teachers to give fuller feedback.
• Feedback opportunities are also provided during recorded lessons where children are asked to pause to practice a skill or to answer a question.
• We also regularly use google forms to quiz our pupils.

Additional support for pupils with particular needs

How 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:

• Support is available in school to guide families through how to approach the work, with the work being scaffolded to support your child.
• Online spaces have been arranged to allow for intervention and support classes to be set up, this way your child will be able to access the work pitched for them, as if they were in school.
• If technology is the barrier, school will supply packs of work for families to collect that will be pitched at your child’s level.
• For our younger pupils activities will be practical and these can be captured by the adult and images shared on Tapestry.

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.

However, we the aim will be to provide as much coverage of the daily curriculum content for the pupil as possible. This way there will be much less disruption to their learning and an easier reintegration back into class when they return.

If my child is not in school because they are self-isolating, how will their remote education differ from the approaches described above?

We aim to allow children to continue to access the teaching of the main curriculum as much as possible. The teaching slides and accompanying work will be posted on Google Classroom for pupils to access. Teachers will phone to check on how the pupil is coping and accessing the work. 

The work set online will match that delivered in class. If the pupil is not able to access work remotely we will provide packs of paper based work, although there may be a days delay to prepare this to be sent home. 

Follow this link to read our Remote Learning Expectations: click here