Remote Learning

Welcome to our information page about how our school will deliver remote learning in the event of a bubble/school closure or if an individual child is self-isolating.

Remote Learning - Information for Parents/Carers:

In these uncertain times, we need to be prepared for the possibility of children spending extended periods of time at home. This guide provides further information about how we will deliver our mix of ‘face-to-face’, ‘blended’ and ‘virtual’ learning opportunities, depending upon the situation that we find ourselves in.

Should children need to stay at home, our aim is to provide learning experiences for children that are as closely matched to their classroom experiences as we can possibly give them. The purpose of this guide is to provide you with information about how we aim to do this and what we are asking you as a parent/carer to do alongside us as a school to support your child with learning from home.

Learning Types:

• Face-To-Face Learning: Simply put, this is the learning that takes place in the classroom.
• Blended Learning: This is online learning that is a combination of pre-recorded lessons by our teachers (the closest we can achieve to face-to-face learning) with accompanying activities that mirror those which are taking place or would have taken place in the classroom coupled with independent virtual learning opportunities.
• Virtual Learning: This is online learning that children have access to at home at any time which doesn’t necessarily require a teacher input and can be completed at the learner’s own pace (Bug Club, Times Tables Rock Stars, Espresso and activities on J2E).

Children in School:

• Children in school will continue to receive face-to-face learning.
• Children in school also have access to virtual learning resources (such as Bug Club, Times Tables Rock Stars, J2E etc.) at home. We recommend visiting these sites at home regularly to help your child with key skills in areas such as reading, spelling and maths. 

Whole Class/Bubble Learning from Home:

If your child’s class/year group/bubble have to remain at home at any point, blended learning opportunities will be provided for them. This will be a combination of class teacher led learning (the closest we can achieve to face-to-face) using pre-recorded videos created by class teachers and activities on J2E. In addition to these, children will be directed to virtual learning resources (Bug Club, Times Tables Rock Stars etc.).

On a daily basis, your child’s teacher will be live on Microsoft Teams to provide face-to-face contact. During these sessions, they will direct children towards their learning for each day. We teach the same curriculum remotely as we do in school wherever possible and appropriate - activities set for children at home are as closely matched to those in the classroom as possible. 

Individual Children Learning from Home:

If your child needs to self-isolate but the rest of their class are still in school, you will be able to access virtual learning (Bug Club, Times Tables Rock Stars etc.) and your child’s class teacher will see what you have done. In addition, activities and learning that are taking place within the classroom will also be available in their online format using Just 2 Easy. These will be shared with your child’s account and feedback will be given by your child’s class teacher on a daily basis.

Microsoft Teams

We use Microsoft Teams on a daily basis to:

• Hold morning 'assemblies' in each year group.
• Hold end of day 'Story Times' in each year group.

Live assembly and story times have staggered start times to make it as easy as possible for children with siblings in school to attend the live sessions. Both of your child's year group teachers will attend these live sessions. The teacher responsible for home learning for your child's year group will lead the session and the teacher working in the classroom will log into the session to allow children in the classroom to be part of the assembly and story time too. 

Morning 'Assemblies':

What happens in a morning assembly?

• Upon joining the morning assembly, children will be able to see a 'SODA' (Start of Day Activity) recapping previous learning that they can work on while waiting for other children to join the 'room'.
• Your child's teachers will give all the children a friendly greeting.
• Teachers will talk about successful home learning that has taken place and praise children.
• Information about the day's lessons and activities will be shared by teachers.
• Children will be given the opportunity to speak to their class teacher before beginning their learning for the day.
• Morning assemblies will be approximately 15 minutes long.

End of Day 'Story Time':

What happens in an end of day story time?

• Teachers will celebrate the learning that has taken place that day.
• Teachers will discuss learning and address any learning misconceptions that may have arisen during the day.
• There will be the announcement of 'Star of the Day'.
• Teachers will lead a story time.
• Children will have the opportunity to speak to their class teacher.
• End of Day story times will be approximately 15 minutes long.

Timings of live sessions on Microsoft Teams:

We have staggered the start times of live sessions on Teams to enable siblings that are sharing a device at home to be able to access their year group's sessions. The timings are as follows:

Just 2 Easy

Alongside Teams, we have chosen to use Just 2 Easy (J2E).

On a daily basis:

• Teachers will share a pre-recorded English, Maths and non-core lesson each day as a minimum.
• Teachers will share accompanying learning activities for each lesson that are as closely matched to those that are taking place/would have taken place in the classroom as possible.
• When children complete their learning on J2E, their class teachers will provide feedback using the ‘learning conversation’ tool. This feedback may be written feedback or sent in the form of an audio recording.
• Children can then revisit their activity to act upon any feedback given.

The J2E platform allows teachers to share the same activities that would be taking place in the classroom and enable children to work through lessons/activities at their own pace at a convenient time during the day.

• All activities can be completed using J2E without the need to print anything out.
• If an activity requires children to write by hand or be completed ‘offline’, a photograph of the completed activity can be uploaded to their files on J2E. This can be marked in the same way as their other learning activities. With activities such as these, there really is no need to print anything out!

The Quantity of Remote Learning

Early Years:

On a daily basis:

• There will be a live morning assembly.
• There will be an end of day story time.
• Daily pre-recorded lessons from your class teacher with age appropriate learning activities matched to the planned curriculum in your child's year group.
• Daily phonics learning.

Home learning in Early Years should take around 2 hours per day.

Key Stage 1 (Year 1 and Year 2):

On a daily basis, a minimum of:

• One morning assembly of approx. 15 minutes.
• One end of day story time of approx. 15 minutes.
• One English lesson with time to complete activities.
• One Maths lesson with time to complete activities.
• One lesson in another subject with time to complete activities.
• Daily phonics learning as directed by class teachers.
• A minimum of 20 minutes independent reading on Bug Club.

Home learning in Key Stage 1 should take a minimum of 3 hours per day on average.

Key Stage 2 (Year 3 and Year 4):

On a daily basis, a minimum of:

• One morning assembly of approx. 15 minutes
• One end of day story time of approx. 15 minutes
• One English lesson with time to complete activities.
• One Maths lesson with time to complete activities.
• One lesson in another subject with time to complete activities.
• A minimum of 20 minutes independent reading on Bug Club.
• A minimum of 10 minutes learning times tables facts on Times Tables Rock Stars or J2Blast.
• A minimum of 10 minutes learning spellings on J2Blast for spelling.

Home learning in Key Stage 2 should take a minimum of 4 hours on average per day.

Access to Devices:

For your information, Teams and J2E are accessible on laptops, tablets, PCs and smart phones.

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

• School have secured a number of digital devices through donations and have also ordered our allocated devices from the DfE. These will be distributed to children identified as needing devices.
• If your child does not have access to a device, or indeed access to the internet at home, please contact the school office so that we can assist you further.
• Please once again note that no activity requires printing out at home as they can be completed either on J2E or by hand. Activities completed by hand can be photographed and this can then be shared with your child's class teacher on J2E. If you do not have access to a camera, this work can be held onto until children return to school.

Expectations:

We expect children to:

• Attend live online sessions when possible.
• Complete all learning activities set (though children are free to complete these at convenient times throughout the day). If your child is struggling with an activity, please do not let them worry. Contact your child's class teacher via the year group email and they will of course assist your child further.
• Ensure that their work is completed to the best of their ability.
• Review the feedback that their teacher has given on their work and respond accordingly.

We expect parents/carers to:

• Supervise children at all times while they are online and accessing home learning.
• Consider setting a daily routine/timetable to enable children to have structure to their day.
• Ensure that their child is completing activities to the best of their ability.
• Notify class teachers of any issues regarding the access of lessons/activities or the inability to attend a live session by contacting your child's year group email address.

Keeping Safe Online:

We are fully committed to keeping your child stay safe online in and out of school. Whenever your child is completing online learning, whether that is after school or because of the need for children to stay at home, it is important that school and parents/carers work together to continue to keep children safe online. For this reason, we are asking that:

• parents/Carers supervise their children while accessing home learning – As we are using online platforms, we need to be paying attention to the content that our children are accessing and creating as well as the contact that they are making and receiving.
• while we have disabled the ability for children to use their cameras/microphones during Teams assemblies with their teacher, parents/carers continue to monitor their child to ensure that these remain switched off.
• parents/carers supervise their child during Teams meetings to enable them to talk to their class teacher.
• parents/carers monitor the work that their child completes to ensure that the content is appropriate.

Live meetings on Teams will not be recorded. This to protect the identity of our children. There will always be two members of school staff in any meeting for safeguarding reasons.

Monitoring Engagement:

We understand that sometimes children will not be able to complete an activity or attend a live meeting for various reasons. Therefore, we ask parents/carers to notify teachers via their year group contact email.

Teachers will be monitoring the completion of work and children’s activity on Bug Club. Where children are not completing work that has been set for them, parents/carers will be contacted by telephone to discuss any issues.

Teachers will also be monitoring the quality of work that children produce. Where a teacher feels that a child is not producing work to the best of their ability, appropriate feedback via J2E will be given and parents/carers will be contacted by telephone.

Assessing Children's Remote Learning:

In-line with our marking and feedback policy, feedback will be manageable, meaningful and motivating. Our J2E platform allows teachers to provide marking and feedback on all pieces of work completed. As soon as a child completes an activity, this work is visible to teachers and can be marked accordingly on a daily basis.

Children will receive feedback on their learning every day and we ask that parents/carers support their children with acting upon any advice that teachers give.

Additional Support for Children with Particular Needs:

We recognise that some children, for example some children 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:

• Class teachers will set learning that is appropriate to children with particular needs and in-line with their individual provision plans if applicable.
• Class teachers are available to be contacted during school hours to discuss any issues that children/families may be experiencing.
• Regular communication between the school’s SENDCo and families of children with particular needs will take place to ensure that children are accessing learning successfully.

Learning From Home Links

If your child is learning from home, please follow the following links to access both of our chosen platforms (Microsoft Teams and Just 2 Easy):

Microsoft Teams: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/microsoft-teams/log-in 

Here, you will be able to login using your child's Teams login details and attend the live daily sessions with your child's teachers.

Just 2 Easy: http://www.j2e.com

This is where children can complete the activities that class teachers are setting for them. All activities can be completed on here. Once an activity is complete, press the 'save' icon and your child's class teacher will immediately be able to see their completed work.

Please remember that this is a new way of working for all of our staff and we kindly ask for your patience in the event of any technical difficulties.

If you require further assistance, please contact your child's class teacher via the year group emails below:

• Nursery children: nurserycontact@perton-first.staffs.sch.uk
• Reception children: receptioncontact@perton-first.staffs.sch.uk
• Year 1: Year1contact@perton-first.staffs.sch.uk
• Year 2: Year2contact@perton-first.staffs.sch.uk
• Year 3: Year3contact@perton-first.staffs.sch.uk
• Year 4: Year4contact@perton-first.staffs.sch.uk

Please remember that these email addresses are for home learning queries only and emails will only be responded to during school hours.