Aims

This remote learning policy for staff aims to:

·       Ensure consistency in the approach to remote learning for all children

·       Set out expectations for all members of the school community with regards to remote learning

·       Provide appropriate guidelines for data protection

Roles & Responsibilities

           2.          Teachers

When providing remote learning, teachers must be available between 8.30am and 4.30pm.  If they are unable to work for any reason during this time, for example due to sickness or caring for a dependent, they should report this using the normal absence procedure.

When providing remote learning opportunities, teachers are responsible for:

1.1 Planning & Delivery of an Outstanding Curriculum 

Planning a remote curriculum that is clear, well-sequenced supporting all pupils whether they are learning in school or remotely. 

• The delivery of a remote curriculum to all pupils whether they are in school or learning from home. Teachers may be required to work in school with a small number of pupils whilst also delivering a remote education.

• Planning and delivering live and recorded teaching sessions following the agreed timetable in APPENDIX 1.

• Setting work and informing parents in a timely manner as agreed by the school

• The management and administration of all activities on the Google Classroom platform used by their class teaching team. 

• Coordinating with their class teaching team with regards the planning and delivery of a remote curriculum to children in school and children learning at home to ensure a consistent approach and a fair and equitable access to education for all pupils within their care.

• Monitor children’s access to a remote curriculum and alert the Head of School or DDSL should there be any concerns with regards to safeguarding and child protection, access to an appropriate device to facilitate online learning, access to a virtual online platform via an effective wifi or internet provider and access to an appropriate place to work at home. 

1.2 Providing Feedback to all Pupils on their Progress & Attainment

• A clear feedback loop is in place including guidelines for task completion, submitting work and when and how feedback will be given to individual and groups of children.

• Have regular access to completed work from all pupils.

• Have a clear structure for feedback and monitoring pupil progress

• Have an agreed end date for the submission of pieces of work and when the feedback loop will end.

1.3 Keeping in Touch with Pupils & their Families

• Teachers will maintain regular contact with the children in their teaching group through twice daily registration sessions. 

• Alert the school office should a child not attend a registration session without prior arrangement

• Record attendance appropriately using agreed codes on Arbor

• Record attendance, including none attendance, weekly on a Pupil Engagement Tracker.

• Teachers should avoid communicating directly with families through the class email address. Where this is unavoidable, the school admin@ email address MUST be cc’d to all communications.   

• If parents contact teachers via the Google Classroom, teachers may respond from the 'teaching team’.

• If a phone is an appropriate form of contact, teachers must ensure that they either use the school telephone or hide their ID from parents if using a personal mobile device. 

• It is not expected that teachers or support staff should contact parents outside of normal working hours. 

• Teachers should not contact or respond to children who email either their named email or class email address using a personal email address.  Children do not have access to an email account through their google logion details. 

• Teachers should not respond to complaints made to them directly.  These should be sent to the main admin@ email address or the Head of School who will work together to address them.

• If a safeguarding concern is raised or identified by the teaching team, the DSL or DDSL must be informed immediately.  Please see the section below.  

• If a behavioural concern is raised, the school’s Behaviour Policy must still be applied. 

1.4 Contributing to Wider School Life

• Teachers will be required to attend a weekly staff meeting which will be held remotely and may also be required to attend additional training or information sessions as and when required.

• Teachers must ensure that they are appropriate dressed for a staff meeting and ensure that they are positioned in front of a neutral background in a quite area.  Where this is not possible, a teacher may attend meetings with their video turned off.

2. Assistant Teachers

When assisting with remote learning, teaching assistants must be available between their normal contracted hours or, if they have been altered in agreement with the Head of School, during the directed hours required to provided support in school or online.  If they are unable to work for any reason during this time, for example due to sickness or caring for a dependent, they should report this using the normal absence procedure

When assisting with remote learning, teaching assistants are responsible for:

2.1 Supporting Pupils in School or Working from Home

• Work closely and in collaboration with the class teacher to ensure the provision of a well-planned, curriculum which is accessible to all pupils at home and at school

• Support the delivery of a remote curriculum to all pupils whether they are in school or learning from home. Assistant Teachers may be required to work in school with a small number of pupils whilst also supporting the delivery of a remote curriculum.

• Monitor children’s access to a remote curriculum and alert the Head of School or DDSL should there be any concerns with regards to safeguarding and child protection, access to an appropriate device to facilitate online learning, access to a virtual online platform via an effective Wi-Fi or internet provider and access to an appropriate place to work at home. 

• Continue to provide intervention session for children both working at home and in school through live or recorded sessions.

2.2 Contributing to Wider School Life

• Assistant Teachers will be required to attend a weekly staff meeting which will be held remotely and may also be required to attend additional training or information sessions as an when required.

• Assistant Teachers must ensure that they are appropriate dressed for a staff meeting and ensure that they are positioned in front of a neutral background in a quite area.  Where this is not possible, a teacher may attend meetings with their video turned off.

3. Designated Safeguarding Lead & Deputy Designated Safeguarding Lead

The DSL & DDSL are responsible for ensuring that the Safeguarding and related policies are adhered to at all times by the teaching team through:

• Monitoring the application of policy and procedure both at school and on online learning platforms including managing disclosures and using the agreed school reporting platform CPOMs

• Ensuring staff are trained and understand how to keep themselves and children safe whilst working remotely

• Highlighting areas of support and development in weekly staff briefings

4. The Head of School

The Head of School will be responsible for

• Co-ordinating the remote learning approach across the school

• Monitoring the effectiveness of remote learning through regular meetings with the teaching team, phase teams and individual teachers, monitoring engagement with digital learning environments, reviewing teaching and learning outcomes and collating feedback from pupils and parents.  

• Monitoring the security of remote learning systems, including data protection and safeguarding considerations

5. Pupils & Parents

Staff can expect pupils learning remotely to:

• Be contactable during the school day and attend a registration session twice

• Attend live teaching sessions where possible

• Contact the teaching team via the Google Classroom if they cannot attend a session, if they are having difficulty learning online or if they are unable to complete or submit work

• Complete the work set to a deadline agreed with the teaching team

• Ask for help if they need it either through the message function during a live lesson, raising their hand or through the secure Google Classroom site

• Agree to and work within the guidelines and behaviour contract agreed buy the class

Staff can expect parents with children learning remotely to:

• Make the school aware if their child is sick or otherwise can’t complete work or attend live sessions by emailing admin@stmartinsacademychester.co.uk or reporting via the absence line by calling 01244 566166 option 1

• Seek help from the school if they need it either by contacting the school directly or by using the confidential help contact form via our virtual school site. 

• Be respectful when making any complaints or concerns known to staff

6. The Governing Body

The governing board is responsible for:

• Monitoring the school’s approach to providing remote learning to ensure education remains as high quality as possible

• Ensuring that staff are certain that remote learning systems are appropriately secure, for both data protection and safeguarding reasons

7.     Who to Contact

If staff have any questions or concerns about remote learning, they should contact the following individuals:

• Issues in setting work – Head of School (SENDCo)

• Issues with behaviour – Director Pastoral

• Issues with IT – Head of School (contact point for Utl)

• Issues with their own workload or wellbeing – Director Pastoral or School Business Manager (V Noble)

• Concerns about data protection – Head of School or School Business Manager

• Concerns about safeguarding – DSL (W Smith) or DDSL (E Bowler)

8.     Data Protection

8.1 Accessing Personal Data

When accessing personal data for remote learning purposes, all staff members will ensure that:

• Where school devices have been supplied (to all teachers) these should be used to access our secure learning platforms and the SIMs Arbor.

• Staff can request a school device to facilitate home working during periods of school closure if not previously issued.

• When school or personal devices or used at home, user accounts for emails, the SIMs Arbor, the shared drive or Google Classroom must be logged out daily. 

8.2 Processing Personal Data

Staff members may need to collect and/or share personal data such as children’s user account logins addresses and passwords and contact details for primary carers at home as part of the remote learning system policy and procedures. As long as this processing is necessary for the school’s official functions, individuals won’t need to give permission for this to happen. However, staff are reminded to collect and/or share as little personal data as possible online.

8.3 Keeping Devices Secure

All staff members will take appropriate steps to ensure their devices remain secure. This includes, but is not limited to:

• Keeping the device password-protected – strong passwords are at least 8 characters, with a combination of upper and lower-case letters, numbers and special characters (e.g. asterisk or currency symbol)

• Ensuring the hard drive is protected – this means if the device is lost or stolen, no one can access the files stored on the hard drive by attaching it to a new device

•  Making sure the device locks if left inactive for a period of time

• Not sharing the device among family or friends

• Installing antivirus and anti-spyware software

• Keeping operating systems up to date – always install the latest updates

9.     Safeguarding

An addendum to the school’s Safeguarding Policy and Procedures has been written and agreed upon and is available on the school website.  This has been shared with all staff members. 

10.  Monitoring arrangements

This policy will be reviewed at least termly by W Smith, Head of School whilst school closure os a possibility.  After that, the policy will be reviewed on an annual basis. At every review, it will be approved by The Education & Mission Sub Committee.

11.  Links with other policies

This policy is linked to our:

• Praise & Discipline policy

• Safeguarding & Child Protection Policies & relevant COVID-19 addendums.

• Data Protection Policy & Privacy notices

• Home-School Agreement

• ICT & Internet Acceptable Use Policy

• Online safety policy

Date Reviewed: January 2021

Date of next review: September 2021 (or earlier if guidance changes) 

Introduction.

This information is intended to provide clarity and transparency to pupils attending St Martin’s Academy and their parents or carers about what to expect from remote education where national or local restrictions require entire year groups (or bubbles) to remain at home. For details of what to expect where individual pupils are self-isolating whilst their bubble is still in school, please see the final section of this page.

The Remote Curriculum: What will my children be learning?

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. This is particularly true if there has been limited notification of a closure. 

The First Few Days: What should my child expect on the first day of learning from home?

In the first instance, a child’s emotional wellbeing will be our priority whilst balancing a business as usual approach.  Unless we have significant staff absence, your child will be welcomed to a registration session at 9am (or 1pm if they are required to self-isolate part way through a morning session) by their class teaching team when the timetable for the day will be shared.  On the first day, remote learning tasks may be set requiring children to be working independently and monitored by their class teaching team.  However, from the second day, there is an expectation that the team will teach live sessions throughout the day replicating the normal classroom timetable where possible. Where illness prevents the class teaching team from working with their class, we will ensure that the children continue to work with a teacher familiar to them.

The Curriculum: Will my child be taught the same curriculum as they would be in school?

Where possible, the same planned curriculum will be taught to pupils whilst they are learning from home.  However, the team will look closely at the key concepts required and the suitability of some subject areas for home learning and make necessary adjustments.  For example, where specialist equipment is required or where children may need greater support from the teaching team in order to achieve their learning goals, particularly when a key concept is new, the team may decide to move these areas of learning to when children are back in school.  The team may also focus on specific areas that are required to support the mental health and wellbeing of all learners as well as promoting online safety and digital competencies.  

Remote Teaching & Study Time: What can we expect each day?

During remote learning, the main teaching timetable will be moved online with live sessions in most year groups from 9am to 3pm including a morning and afternoon beak and a lunch hour.  In most cases, the timetable will be adjusted to take into account the unique circumstances of distance learning. Where possible, the teaching team will continue to use visual timetables at the start of each session. Live sessions will include input from class teachers and assistant teachers as well as a range of activities to reinforce the learning focus. Sessions will usually be structured to include retrieval or recall of prior learning, modelled examples or explanations of new or challenging content, online or offline independent activities allowing children to practice or use the skills they have been taught. Hot questions will be used to target individual children to check for understand and assess progress.  During some sessions, children may be split into different online ‘rooms’ to allow for differentiated outcomes and interventions to take place.  In the EYFS, live teaching will account for 50% of the school day with this increasing to full time in Years 2 and above.  Children will be encouraged to take a break from the screen during playtimes and lunchtimes however the virtual classroom will remain open so that children can talk to their class teacher and each other; especially important for children who are working in busy households.  

Accessing Remote Education: Where will we be able to access the remote platform?

Our Virtual school is accessible online either through our website or through this link bit.ly/ourvirtualschool. Our virtual school platform has a number of different areas for both children and parents to use including a Wellbeing Zone and a Parent Support Area.  There are also specific pages for each class and it is through these pages that children can enter their secure Google Classroom.  All children have been supplied with login details which includes an email address and a password.  The email address is not linked to an email account and is used only as a login username for their online classroom to allow access to certain apps required for learning, for example Google Docs or Google Slides..  

We appreciate that some children may have difficulty accessing an online learning environment due to poor internet connection or the lack of a suitable device to access the virtual school.  The school can support families accessing schemes aimed at providing free data upgrades for mobile devices, provide data SIM cards and dongles and access free wireless routers. The school will also loan a tablet device to families to use during school closure. We can also provide work in printed form which can be collected and dropped off at school.

Remote Teaching Strategies: How will my child access their learning?

Most teaching sessions will be delivered live by the teaching team and by specialist teachers employed by the school.  From time to time, the following approaches may be used to teach children remotely:

• live teaching (online lessons)

• recorded teaching 

• printed paper packs produced by teachers (e.g. workbooks, worksheets)

• textbooks and reading books pupils have at home

• commercially available websites supporting the teaching of specific subjects or areas, including video clips or sequences

• External peripatetic teachers delivering specialist areas of the curriculum

Engagement with Online Learning Platforms: How often will my child need to be online?

It is expected that all children will continue to attend school and engage with the online learning platform in the same way as they would if our school was open.  Children will be registered twice daily with morning registration at 9am and afternoon registration at 1pm and it is expected that all children will be present. We acknowledge that children may become unwell during school closure and are unable to attend their online classes.  In those cases, we ask that parents inform school of their child’s absence either by emailing admin@stmartinsacademychester.co.uk or by calling the absence on 01244 566166 option 1.

We appreciate that not all children will be able to work alone and independently online and that parents may need to support them in order for them to access their learning.  We also recognise that not all children will be able to sustain concentration online as they would in school and will work with families to ensure a balance of activities and online engagement to suit individual needs.  

Assessing Children’s Progress: How will I know my child is making progress?

Assessment and feedback may take a variety of forms and will be dependent upon the age and stage of a child through their learning journey and may not mean extensive written comments on a child’s individual piece of work.  Our approach to feeding back to children is as follows:

Verbal: Children will be given feedback during and at the end of each session which will include celebrating their achievements and identifying next steps for improvement.  

Written: Where most learning is completed independently and not during live teaching sessions, the teaching team will provide written feedback on work submitted onto the Google Classroom platform.  Parents may be required to support younger children when accessing these comments.

Reporting to Parents: Your child’s class teacher will arrange to meet with you once in the autumn term and once in the spring term. Where this cannot happen face to face, it will be arranged via a secure virtual platform.  These meetings will provide you with feedback in terms of your child’s progress and attainment and an opportunity to discuss support moving forward including next steps.  In the summer term, you will receive a written report detailing your child’s progress and attainment during the year.

IP Meetings: For children who regularly receive intervention and support in school, half termly IP meetings are arranged to share progress against short term targets and set new ones.  These meetings will be helped virtually during periods of school closure or when face to face meetings are not possible.  

Supporting Children with Additional Needs: Will my child continue to have access to additional support?

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:

• As far as is practicable, small group and 1:1 intervention sessions will continue whilst children are learning form home.  This includes but is not limited to ELSA sessions, Beat Dyslexia, SALT interventions, Toe by Toe/Hornet/Wasp sessions.  

• Teachers will continue to work towards targets agreed with parents during Individual Plan meetings whilst recognising that these may need to be altered to reflect a child’s unique learning environment.

• Where specialist resources are required e.g. a writing slope, these will be provided for home use.

Remote education for self-isolating pupils: What will happen to my child if they need to self –isolate?

Where individual pupils need to self-isolate but the majority of their peer group remains in school, how remote education is provided will likely differ from the approach for whole groups. This is due to the challenges of teaching pupils both at home and in school. We will work with individual families to ensure that their child (or children) are taught a planned, well sequenced curriculum with meaningful and ambitious work. During a period of self-isolation, a child may be provided the following learning opportunities:

• Live registration twice a day

• Whole class or group live teaching sessions including guided reading

• Live intervention sessions (small group or 1:1) they would usually access in school

• Printed work packs

• Regular contact with the teaching team in school

While we appreciate that children learn best in school, we have worked hard to ensure that our online platform brings as much of what makes St Martin’s special into your home.  Our curriculum offer ensures that all children are treated equally wherever they learn. During periods of whole school closure, staff will ensure that their expectations are made clear and the details within the policy above are shared with families during Remote Learning Curriculum Presentation Meetings.