Remote Education Offer @ St George's

Remote education provision: information for parents

Remote education will be required for two reasons:

School must enter into a period of extended closure for some or all pupils. This may be due to a wide variety of factors including:

• Adverse weather
• Local emergency
• Serious defects with school building
• Local or national public health restrictions.

2.  Are reasons why an individual child cannot access education.  These circumstances should only involve a short-term absence and might include pupils:

• recovering from short- term infectious illnesses
• preparing for or recovering from some operations
• recovering from injuries where attendance might inhibit recovery

Department for Education remote education guidance has placed a duty on leaders to provide high-quality remote education when it is not possible, or is contrary to government guidance, for some or all pupils to attend school.

Leaders should prioritise having all or some pupils in school if restrictions are in place.  Remote education should only be used as a last resort.

What will the remote curriculum offer be?

Digital Platforms

Staff will aim to organise 3 hours of schooling using established platforms already used by pupils.  They are:

• EYFS, Year 1 and Year 2 use Seesaw Platform
• Years 4 to 6 use Google Classroom

Learning Packs and Resources

If we have notice of closure and can plan ahead, we will organise:

• Learning packs including workbooks, stationery, reading books (at age-appropriate level).
• For laptops and I-pads to be sent home. Many children already have their own device in school.
• If children need SEND support resources such as headphones, adaptive equipment, sensory aids, overlays etc, we will also aim to send these home with the children or make them available for collection as soon as possible (see below).

If the closure is sudden and extended, we will aim to have these packs available for collection from school offices as soon as possible.

Curriculum Offer and Timetable

Staff will establish a daily timetable of study and share that online.  This will be:

• 3 hours for EYFS to Year 2
• 4 hours from Year 3 to Year 6

We will aim to focus on core skills (reading, oracy, maths) but also deliver the breadth of the full curriculum.

This will include:

• Meet and greet and check in sessions including assemblies to maintain our pastoral support and social connection.
• Live lessons and sessions with their teacher using their digital platform (See-Saw or Google classroom).
• Pre-recorded lessons from National Academy
• Learning tasks based on their curriculum.
• Reading time.
• Other useful lesson links from established education providers (My Happy Mind, I-Moves etc).

Children will have access to software that they already use in their studies.  This includes:

• Spelling Shed
• TT Rock Stars
• Maths Whizz
• Number Bots
• R, W Inc Phonics
• Accelerated Reader

What if my child is receiving remote education as an individual due to their health needs?

1.  Your child will have  a designated staff member as a point of contact.

That member of our team will ring you within the first day or two to discuss this and establish what you will have the capacity to do at home in terms of work. 

2.  We will agree a timetable including pastoral support, class contact, 1-1 lessons and assigned work including lessons on National Academy.

3.  If required we will plan this with colleagues form other agencies such as medical care, mental health professionals and social workers.

4.  Your child’s class teacher will arrange for a ‘home learning pack’ to be sent home with a range of appropriate resources, exercise books and a laptop with headphones if required.

There will be no expectation that you will have to do the work set with your child and there can be discussion around what you feel is appropriate and can be managed with the class teacher. It may be appropriate for more independent living skills activities to form the basis of work, or we may conclude that for the wellbeing of your child and family we will suspend schoolwork activities until your child can return to school. 

Due to the individuality of our pupils, their needs and the amounts of support that they require to access remote learning, their individual offer will be very varied. Our first priority within the family will be to establish what would be reasonable for the parents being able to manage whilst maintaining positive wellbeing in the household, when bearing in mind all the other pressures the family may be facing (support siblings with home schooling, working from home, supporting extended family with school drop offs and other needs etc).

Where families are able to support some level of home learning the visual resources sent home and the types of lesson delivered online would be looking to reflect the St Georges curriculum and model of teaching that use.  Aim is to help the pupils to feel that there is familiarity and consistency in expectations.

Digital Support

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:

Where pupils are struggling to access online learning due to the lack of access to the technology, we will:

• Distribute laptops or tablets to children and families.   These will be allocated as follows:

1. Children on SEND register.
2. Children with EAL needs.
3. Children registered as pupil premium.
4. All other children in reverse age order (Year 6, Year 5 etc).

• If required, we can also lend devices that enable an internet connection (for example, routers or dongles).
• Offer home learning packs to support and supplement the lessons that are being taught online. 

Engagement and Feedback

As indicated elsewhere we are keen to work closely with parents and want to set up a remote learning package which is achievable for the specific family context. Where a family feels unable to manage remote learning due to their child’s perception of the distinction between home and school, we will work you to plan what is achievable.

Our expectations are that parents will engage in these conversations with us and feedback honestly about how things are and what is achievable.

We will arrange live sessions with classes; year groups and parents if the whole school/part of the school is required.  During this time we will also arrange 1-1 family support through remote meetings or phone calls if required. 

This can be requested through e-mailing us on pastoral@stgeorges.wirral.sch.uk

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

This will be achieved either through the online learning digital platforms or the regular conversations held with children and parents.  Staff already provide learning feedback on See-Saw and Google classroom to families.

Staff will also use quizzes and online assessments to feedback on learning and understanding.

If we are concerned a member of our pastoral team will reach out directly to you.

The communication with and feedback from parents is as important here as it is in any other part of the programme.