Education is an industry which is evolving at a faster pace than any other period in recent history. Today’s curriculum needs to evolve to meet tomorrow’s reality. Therefore, as part of the role for the Computing Lead at Maundene Primary School, ensuring education progresses at the same rate as technology is and always will be a high priority. Having worked in a face-to-face role throughout the initial lockdown, it came to the school’s attention that the engagement with home learning was fragmented across the year groups who spent longer at home than first anticipated, meaning that not all children were receiving the first-rate education that we would usually expose them to. According to the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO), approximately 1.2 billion learners were out of school during this time and three-quarters of the world’s school population had been affected by closures due to measures to contain the pandemic, therefore children were not accessing their learning.

It was something we needed to change by working closely with the senior leaders and the computing leader.

Maundene have been extremely fortunate to be working with a highly-supportive computing team - Plum Innovations - who have worked closely with us in the development of our IT resources throughout the past year. Initially, when working with them, we discussed the possibility of remote learning, in terms of our infrastructure. We explored the infrastructure already available to the school, which was minimal, and decided Google Classrooms would be a good starting point as we already had access to the G-Suite using LGFL.

Engaging parents at Maundene has become highly successful since starting on our journey with The Inspire Partnership and is something we wished to continue to do even though we currently cannot have parents in school with us. Therefore, remaining transparent with our parent community and informing them of the changes to be made with the implementation of Google Classrooms was of paramount importance. Throughout lockdown, many of the parents were asking for more virtual learning and this was an ideal opportunity to provide this. The initial introduction was when Maundene changed our homework system and this was communicated to the parents via letters. Additional support in helping to access this was provided by phone calls and sending home step-by-step guides. Homework would be uploaded to Google Classrooms and children would be able to access via an electronic device at home. Introducing it to parents in this manner aided the school immensely when we had our first ‘bubble’ closure and Year 5 had to access online learning.

As the world of education is constantly changing and evolving, as a school we felt we needed to follow these developments. One of the biggest driving factors affecting the changes in education today is technology. The students within our school are part of a new generation - a generation who are constantly connected and surrounded with technology, so it only makes sense to fully incorporate this within our teaching practices.

The digital classroom is a classroom which is fully immersed in technology. Having children at home means that they (normally) have access to the Internet and a connected device, whether it be a laptop, tablet etc. When the children have access to the Internet, the majority of the curriculum - if not all of it - can be delivered online.

Having our link with LGFL has meant that we already had G-Suite accounts set up for each child across the school, therefore that section of the set-up was ready for us.

When initially setting up Google Classroom, the Computing Leader and the leadership team decided to start small by trialling it initially with one year group. This would allow Maundene to see any teething issues and solve them, before rolling it out across the entire school. We decided to use Year 5, so that the Computing Leader, who is based in that year group, could get to grips with it further. Having had the login details already, she was able to share those across the two classes. When initially logging the children on, we faced a few challenges which were not originally thought of. The children, who were born into a digital world, are used to accessing devices such as tablets or smartphones, which feature touchscreen keyboards. However, they are not as familiar with a physical keyboard when using a laptop, therefore it was difficult ensuring they typed in the correct login details. This was solved by sitting with the children who were struggling, to support their typing abilities. This made us think and consider the typing ability more as we began to explore the concept of introducing Google Classroom to the younger years within the school.

After trialling the use of Google Classroom within Year 5, the leadership team and Computing Lead were able to explore the successes and challenges to weigh up our options for remote learning. Having so many benefits from the use of this platform, we decided to roll it out across the school. The benefits of Google Classroom included:

• Google Classroom can be accessed from any internet enabled device, such as laptops, tablets and also mobile devices. Children can access any files, which have been uploaded by teachers and students, using Google Drive anytime, anywhere.

• A Virtual Learning Environment is paperless, which follows our Global Theme of Sustainable Development. Children can access their homework without the need for excessive paperwork.

• Google Classroom is a huge time saver as all resources are saved within one place and with the ability to access the Classroom anywhere, teachers will have more free time to complete other tasks.

• Built-in tools make communication between teachers, children and parents very easy. Teachers and children can post to the stream, send private comments on assignments and provide feedback on work. Teachers have full control over student comments and posts.

• As part of The Inspire Partnership, collaboration is a huge priority within our teaching and learning practice - Google Classroom allows students and teachers to collaborate.

• Teachers can facilitate online discussions and create group projects. In addition, students can collaborate on Google Docs, which have been shared by the teacher.

The first step when rolling out Google Classroom across the school was supporting the other staff to ensure they were able to use the platform themselves. The Computing Lead was given time within a PDM (professional development meeting) to conduct the training. The PDM explored the basics of Google Classroom, where staff used the different features that would be appropriate for remote learning. To run alongside this, a guide was produced which was distributed amongst the staff.

Across the school, the children were excited about the prospect of using an online Virtual Learning Environment (VLE) to access their homework. There were both successes and challenges throughout the school during this process:

• One success was the children’s pure motivation to use the system. The children remained resilient, even when they were faced with a challenge, such as typing in their username and password. As a school, we were incredibly proud of the children’s mindset when doing so.

• Additionally, a challenge was that the younger children struggled when asked to type in their username and password. The username is a mixture of different numbers, letters and characters, which the children found tricky to read and then input. From this, we have learnt that if we were to roll out a platform, such as this, again, we would do so with the teachers individually first before the children.

Since the first enrolment of the children, Maundene has used Google Classroom for homework from Year R to Year 6 with great success. There have been initial teething problems, which was fully expected, such as parents not understanding how to access the learning. One way we have engaged the parents is by distributing a guide which explained fully how to access their child’s homework. A further teething problem we have experienced was that some of the staff were not sure how to upload assignments so that the children could access them from home. To combat this, the school was able to go through how to upload an assignment in an additional session during a staff meeting. The staff training has been incredibly valuable, teachers are aware of how to distribute learning effectively using the digital classroom.

Google Classrooms and Bubble Closures

The first use of Google Classroom came the week after half term; we had the first positive case of Covid-19 within the Year 5 bubble. On Wednesday evening, we were suddenly about to trial our first use of remote learning - a mixture of anxiety and excitement were felt amongst the teaching team, as this was the ideal opportunity to get remote learning right for our children.

The Computing lead and her year partner worked collaboratively, from home, to ensure children were able to access high quality learning. They decided, using the guidance distributed by the Senior Leadership Team, to split the learning so that workload was reduced, in line with the EEF findings and the Teacher Workload Review 2017, for both members of staff. Wellbeing is an incredibly important factor, which the school has considered greatly during these unprecedented times.

The Year 5 team planned maths, reading and English for the children, which was uploaded onto a PowerPoint. The lessons were accompanied by voice instruction, and some video instructions where necessary, which meant that the children could access clear, high quality lessons from their teachers to support their home learning. Work was uploaded onto Google Classroom by 9am every day and we would partake in a virtual Meet at 1.30pm each afternoon to answer any queries and questions.

Overall, the process of using Google Classroom was not entirely faultless and there have been steep learning curves for all involved. On the first day, the children used the remote learning which had been set up by teachers across the partnership. This allowed the Year 5 team to discuss and work together on their plan. They decided to work together as outlined below:

• One teacher planned English and the other planned maths

• Both worked together planning and resourcing reading for each day

• They discussed the concept of using Google Meet to communicate with the children each day - eventually they came to the conclusion that Google Meet was not appropriate for this therefore they decided Zoom would be better

As previously stated, the use of Google Classroom for the children was not as easy as first thought and the following issues did arise:

• Children (and parents) were able to access staff email accounts, therefore staff members were receiving emails from parents, rather than communicating through Google Classroom.

• Some parents did not understand how to support their child's use of Google Classroom. The Year 5 team was inundated with questions about how to upload assignments and images of work. To counteract these issues, the Year 5 team supported children and parents through their Zoom meetings and they also decided to create step-by-step guides explaining how to upload assignments and also upload images - these were also shared and disseminated to the whole school, to support the entire Maundene community.

• Engagement with Google Classroom - some children were not accessing their learning. Both the Computing Lead and the other Year 5 teacher were continually calling parents to discuss progress and issues; however, it did not push some children to engage with their learning online. This is an issue which will need to be addressed in the near future.

However, we do need to celebrate that despite Google Classroom having to be set up in a relatively short time period, Year 5 had at least 80% of children engaging and accessing work in this way.

Whilst there were issues which were faced, there were also many positives to come out of remote learning using Google Classroom. One positive was that it was incredibly simple for teachers to upload different types of assignments for the children, such as Google Docs, Forms and also Slides. This meant that there was a variety of learning available for the children, which engaged different children and kept them intrigued. Another positive, which was not seen during the first lockdown, was that the children were able to communicate with one another and with their teachers. Overall, from both of the teacher’s perspectives, it made the two-week isolation period feel shorter and allowed for the Year 5 community to feel more connected during this time.

Currently, we are a school who is successfully using Google Classroom’s basic functions, such as Google Docs and Forms, to deliver high quality remote learning. This is also where homework is accessed, which is uploaded each week by class teachers.