REMOTE LEARNING

Highfield Leadership Academy Lead for Quality of Education: Mr Nabil Jamil, Vice-Principal

Ed Tech Lead: Neil Taylor

Deputy Ed Tech Lead: Caroline Taylor

Remote education provision  Information for parents and carers

Pupils can access their remote learning via Microsoft Teams.

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 to access their lessons online. They will also be provided with any materials that they need in addition to those that they will access through MS Teams.

All pupils will have a personal reading book to continue reading at home.

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

Remote teaching and study time each day

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.

Accessing remote education

Remote lessons will be delivered using Microsoft Teams (MS Teams). 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: Hegarty Maths , Tassomai, Quizlet, Accelerated Reader, Seneca Learning (as well as others)  to support pupils’ independent learning. Pupils have been shown how to access these sites. Materials from Oak National Academy may be used on occasion to support pupils’ learning.

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 info@highfield@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, and where feasible, these will be dropped off via our pastoral team.

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

Remote teaching will be delivered through live lessons in the vast majority of cases. This will involve simultaneous direct teaching by subject 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, such as practical demonstrations in science).

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 consider the difficulties pupils may have in completing physical activity in a confined space and provide alternative suitable learning for pupils who are learning online. For DT and Art, this will come through a combination of live teaching which will be supplemented by platforms such as Oak National Academy.

Where pupils are expected to use textbooks, the relevant material from them will be made available online. 

In some cases, pupils will have textbooks or paper-based resources issued by school to support their learning and they should use these as directed by their teachers.

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 via text and phone calls if your child misses and lessons that they are expected to attend. We will endeavour to 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 email / 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 on the MS Teams ‘chat’ function. Some feedback will be given on a whole-class basis, and sometimes your child may complete quizzes that are marked automatically via digital platforms.

For their next set of mock exams, a separate communication will be made to pupils and parents of how, logistically, this will function.

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:

Staff will endeavour to Keep things as simple as possible. Instructions will be clear and concise, using an economy of language. PowerPoints will display clear success criteria for pupils to be able to meet the outcomes of a task or lesson.

Pupils with SEND will be contacted on a regular basis during any period of extended remote learning. They will be able to express any concerns about their access to learning, and the member of staff will then be able to liaise with the relevant colleagues to provide appropriate support and guidance.

Whilst working from home, pupils will have to develop their independent working skills. Staff will support this through directing them to reflect on their work as well as suggesting strategies to approach a task or activity.

Teachers will consider the best approaches to support the learning of all pupils. For example, games for learning maybe used for vocabulary learning in foreign languages. Teachers may also direct pupils to various online platforms to access additional resources such as videos, quizzes, and retrieval practice activities.

We are keen to ensure an enhanced induction for MS Teams access takes place for our pupils with SEND.