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Remote Learning

The information on this page is intended to provide clarity and transparency to pupils and parents or carers about what to expect from remote education where national or local restrictions require entire cohorts (or bubbles) to remain at home. For more information please follow the links below. 

 
 

For our pupils - A video guide on how to upload work to epraise

Attendance to Online Learning - Letter to Parents

Good Afternoon,

Before half term we gathered thoughts and views of parents on our Remote Learning Offer and have been really impressed with the attitude to learning that has been shown and at the support that we have received from our school community.

One change that has been suggested was that parents and carers could be notified quicker if the children were missing lessons.

Since Monday, a standard message is now being sent via epraise in any zoomed lessons that your child does not attend.

The following lessons are delivered via Zoom: English, Maths, Science, Geography, History, RE, PSCHE, French.

Epraise points will be added to reward individual's attendance of Zoom lessons upon our return.

If you know that your child is unwell and cannot attend the lesson, please notify the school office in the same way that you would if they could not attend school. If there is a reason, please let the form tutor know or the messaging teacher if it is specific to their lesson.

If the message does not require a response, the teacher will not respond. Please rest assured that all messages are read on a daily basis.

Thank you once again for your support and we look forward to welcoming all of our children back soon.

Kind Regards

Kevin Medway

Deputy Headteacher (Inclusion and Personal Development

Feedback and Assessment - Letter to Parents

Dear Parents/Guardians,

Feedback and Assessment during remote learning

I am writing to inform you that we have recently updated our remote learning policy to ensure it continues to meet the needs of our pupils whilst they are learning remotely. In response to the parental survey results, we want to communicate with you our most up to date feedback procedures.

Teaching the pupils live on zoom enables teachers to build formative assessment and feedback into their teaching approaches through a mixture of quizzes, digital tools and modelling of good answers. These approaches help teachers to understand how pupils are achieving. This is similar to the way they would receive feedback when in their normal lessons. Our teachers are working very hard to teach their normal full-time timetable, live and in real time, as well as teaching the key worker children we have in school at the same time. This is a contrast to some other remote learning offers elsewhere, where the children have limited face to face lessons with their teachers and so are asked to submit work for each lesson. In these settings the teachers are more available to give immediate written feedback, as they are not teaching back-to-back live lessons in the same way our teachers are.

We really appreciate all of the hard work our pupils and parents are doing to engage in the learning activities we are offering and understand that the pupils need feedback to help them make progress and to help to keep them motivated. We have outlined below our expectations in terms of how and when the pupils will receive feedback.

How will my child receive feedback from their teachers whilst learning remotely?
There are a number of ways your child may receive feedback whilst they are learning remotely Here are some of the other methods we use to give feedback to the pupils:

  • Individual feedback comments - where a pupil is requested to upload or submit a piece of work, they will receive an individual feedback comment.
  • Whole class feedback - the teacher will give some generic feedback on how well they have completed a task, followed by the children writing down the targets that apply to them and spending some time improving their work.
  • Low stakes quizzes/ tests - They may be asked the complete a quiz via Epraise or possibly another external provider such as Kerboodle or MyMaths. This could be in the form of a start of lesson recap, a spellings test, or it could be at the end of a topic to help teachers identify any gaps in learning. These quizzes help teachers to identify where any gaps in learning may be and they will then address these verbally to the pupils and feedback on how they can improve in their zoom lesson.
  • D.I.R.T – (Dedicated Improvement and Reflection Time) - At school we call this “green pen time”. The pupils should be familiar with this term. If they have received feedback and have been set targets, we would expect them to go back to that piece of work and make improvements or add detail in a green (or another colour if you don’t have green). Modelling and sharing work examples during live lessons – Teachers will often use a success criterion so the pupils know what they are trying to achieve. They will model how a task should be completed. Pupils may also be given screen share access so they show their work to the teacher and their peers during the lesson. The teacher may then guide pupils to reflect on their work, considering strengths and targets for further improvement. They may also be asked to hold up their work to the screen so the teacher can see how much they have completed.
  • During live lessons pupils are able to ask their teacher any questions they may have or communicate if they do not understand a task. This means that teacher can give immediate feedback and address any misconceptions.

How often will my child be asked to submit a piece of work?
This will vary between subjects. In addition to the built-in feedback the pupils are receiving in live lessons they will be asked to participate in a number of more formal assessment activities. In English, Maths and Science these will occur at least once a week and in other subjects at least once a fortnight. However, it will depend on the topic and type of learning they are doing in those individual lessons. They may be asked to submit a photo or upload the work they have done so the teacher can see how they are progressing, or they may be asked to submit an extended piece of writing. They may also participate in quizzes to test their knowledge and understanding of the key concepts they have covered. This could be using Epraise or other providers such as Kerboodle, which will give them instant feedback on how they performed.

What will happen to the work that my child is completing at home?
When the children return to school, we will expect them to bring in all of the work they have completed whilst learning remotely. Teachers are delivering their normal curriculum content, which is meaningful and ambitious. It is not “fill in” work and it is important that we can see what they have done on their return. Teachers will spend time with the pupils reflecting on the work they have produced as well as celebrating and rewarding their hard work. We ask that the children try to keep their work organised and in date order. If it is possible, the children should keep a folder or plastic wallet for each subject and file their work away as it is completed. This is something we would have liked to have provided the children, had we had more notice of the school closure. If you are not able to keep the work in folders, keep it in subject piles and we will provide folders when your child returns to school. Where pupils have been given targets to improve their work, they may be asked to go back to previous piece of work and edit it and so we suggest they have their previous lessons work available when they attend their zoom lessons.

How can my child see the feedback they have received for work they have submitted?
When your child submits a piece of work via Epraise, they will receive an individual feedback comment. You may have noticed that your child’s planner on Epraise is colour coded. Work that is due is yellow, overdue is red, and completed is green. If your child has submitted a piece of work for that lesson, once the teacher has written a feedback comment, the colour will change to blue as seen below. They should then click onto it and read the feedback. It would be a good idea to the pupil to use a different coloured pen (preferably green) and write a summary of the feedback they have received on the relevant piece of work. On the school website, under the remote learning tab, there is a video which shows the pupils how to upload work via Epraise.

Why does my child have such a high number of pieces of work overdue?
We made the decision as a school, that in order for pupils to access their zoom links easily, they would be added to their planner. Unfortunately, this also adds itself to the to do list and may indicate that there is work due. If your child goes to their planner and views their to do list, they can click on the “not done” button which will change the status of that lesson to complete and this will reduce the number of overdue items shown on the parent app. Where a teacher has requested a piece of work to be submitted, the task will not change to complete and will remain as due or overdue until the child has uploaded the requested file.

Does my child have to complete all of the tasks for all subjects?
We expect, where possible, for your child to attend all of their live lessons and respond to any tasks set for them on Epraise, however, we completely understand that there may be some factors at home that act as barriers, meaning this cannot always happen and the welfare of our pupils will always be our first priority. Registers are taken at the start of each zoom lesson and we do track the children’s attendance to lessons. The children should complete as much work as they can during their normal lesson time and we would not expect them to go back to finish incomplete work at the end of the day. At moment we have suspended the setting of homework with the exception of weekly spellings and additional reading. We ask that you communicate with teachers about any barriers you may be facing so we can offer you support. We ask that parents encourage their children to engage in the activities set and log into their parent account where possible to see if their child is submitting work where it has been requested.

Cameras during live lessons
Due to safeguarding and also to ensure that the pupils are taking part in lessons as they should be, we ask that all pupils have their cameras turned on for the duration of their zoom lessons. Some pupils are turning off their cameras and refusing to switch them on when requested by their teacher. This makes it very difficult for us to fully engage with them throughout the lesson. Please can you reinforce this with your child and let your child’s class teacher know if there is a genuine reason why your child cannot turn their camera on. If your child regularly has their camera switched off, their teacher will send you a message to make you aware and find out if there is a reason why they cannot engage with their camera on.

We thank you for your ongoing support and patience whilst we work hard to ensure that our remote learning offer is as effective as it can be for our pupils and we are looking forward to being able to have them back in the classroom soon.

Who should I contact at school if I need support?
Pastoral issues – Your child's class/ form teacher
Subject specific concerns – The teacher of that subject
General – The school office.


Mrs A. Elwell                                   Mrs N. Hine
Head of School                              Acting Assistant Headteacher

 

 

Every week we have one wellbeing afternoon where the pupils are encouraged to spend time away from their screens. During these afternoons the pupils can live zoom into live fitness to music and yoga sessions. See below for our weekly wellbeing letters and to see what pupils have been getting up to at home. 

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