Remote Learning Statement

This information 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 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?

If a child is sent home from school to isolate, either because they have tested positive for Covid-19 or having been identified as a ‘contact’ who has tested positive, they should immediately be able to access the recorded video lessons that are on the school website.

These videos have been pre-recorded to ensure that students who are not able to attend school are receiving the same curriculum coverage as those that are. Whilst these videos lack the interactive element of face-to-face lessons learning, the use of platforms linked via these lessons, such as Google Classroom, Edulink, Mathswatch, Educake, etc, will help to compensate to some extent for this loss.

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?

• Yes. The aim of the video lessons is to cover the same curriculum remotely as we do in school so that there is a little negative impact as possible.
• It is worth noting that in some subjects, there has already been some ‘in-school’
  adaptation to curriculum plans to mitigate the impact of school closures or because of practical, resourcing or rooming implications created by the way in which the school is operating with risk assessments in place. However, this curriculum will be mirrored by what students get if learning from home.
• There will be clear and obvious exceptions to this rule, for example in PE where there will be suggested activities but where it is evidently difficult to mirror the curriculum and provision that students in school would be receiving.

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:

• Minimum of 5 hours. This includes the live or video learning which can take a 2 to 3 hours per days, plus any associated tasks, materials, resources, interaction with teachers, etc.

Remote teaching and study time each day

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

Video learning (using a platform called Loom) will be made available to all students on the school website. Any materials and resources associated with these recorded videos will be clearly signposted and provided alongside these. There is no requirement for any student or parent to have a username or password to access these.

Live learning is provided by Google Classroom/Google Meet. Students are provided with a timetable each week which hyperlinks all of the Google Meets that they are expected to attend. This timetable also makes suggestions as to which remote learning videos they should also watch and complete each week.

Work will largely be provided and submitted via Google Classroom although within some subject areas, there is use of subsidiary platforms such as Educake and Mathswatch.

In addition to this, the school uses Edulink (under normal circumstances) to communicate with both students and parents who are using the app and so some messaging may still go via this channel.

If my child does not have digital or online access at home, how will we
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:

• Parents should inform the school if there is not sufficient access to IT provision at home. The survey sent to parents in November 2020 provided the school with the necessary detail to respond to much of the needs and in particular to ensure that all students categorised as SEND or in receipt of Pupil Premium funding were given laptops provided to the school by the DfE or Everton in the community.
• If parents find themselves with IT issues they should contact the appropriate emails address for the Year group their child is in. Where there are resources, we will seek to make these available as soon as possible. This includes laptops, tablets, internet access.
• If students are struggling to access online learning or would prefer paper-based learning, parents should contact the school via the method described above and staff will do their best to ensure that, insofar as this is possible, similar provision is made with hard copies of resources. In these cases, parents will be expected to send work in to the main school office at appropriate points, marked for the attention of specific members of staff.

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 students to engage with remote learning in the ways described above in line with the times we have suggested.
• We understand, accept and encourage in some cases, a flexible approach to remote learning within some households. We understand that for some families, the timetables that we provide will need to be flexed because of circumstances at home. These timetables are not fixed, other than where live learning occurs, so that families can adapt the provision to suit their own context. We accept that parents may be seeing things that we are not seeing within the family home and would encourage a relationship between the school, parents and students based on trust and transparency.
• We understand that for some students, they prefer the recorded video lessons whilst others prefer the live sessions. We accept that parents and students may make informed decisions about these sessions and will keep us in the loop with regard to the way in which they are approaching remote learning.
• We will inform parents each week of the number of live lessons that their child has attended. This is purely for information purposes and not intended to be punitive in any way. As noted above, we accept that there may be legitimate reasons for non attendance at these sessions and so the information that we are providing is intended only to enable parents to be as fully informed as possible, particularly where they are working and not able to supervise and monitor their child’s learning experience.
• We will report regularly on general engagement with remote learning, mainly focusing on an attitude to learning score, aligned with the approach we take to this in normal circumstances.

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:

• Students will be asked to produce key tasks at key points and submit these to teachers. These will form part of an assessment portfolio over time.
  
• Students will receive feedback via Google Classroom and at times during live lessons, in ways that mirror, as far possible, their experiences in school.

Additional support for pupils with particular needs

How will we work with you 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:

• During live lessons, we will provide additional scaffolding for students who may be
  struggling with content.
• At times, we will provide ‘break out’ support for key groups of students and remote
  support from LSAs will be available.
• Additional Google ‘Catchup’ Classrooms will aim to provide guidance for those
  students who we identify as needing further support.
• Key staff will contact those students identified as having particular needs on a regular basis to check on whether they have everything that they need and to enable to fully access remote curriculum provision.