Remote education provision: information for parents

This information is intended to provide clarity and transparency to pupils and parents or carers about what to expect from remote education if 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?

We will, wherever possible provide students with work roughly equivalent to that which is timetabled in school. It should be noted however that should students be sent home to isolate, it is highly likely that teaching staff would have been required to go home to isolate as well, and may therefore not be in a position to immediately set work remotely.

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?

We teach the same curriculum remotely as we do in school wherever possible and appropriate. However, we will need to make some adaptations in some subjects. For example, in practical subjects such as PE, Art and Food Technology we are not able to offer the full range of experiences that students would be offered in school.

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 between 3 and 5 hours a day to complete. (This may be longer for students working towards formal qualifications this year.)

Accessing remote education

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

Work will be set on the Microsoft Office 365 platform. www.office.com

Students have their own username and password. (Please phone school main reception or email enquiry@baskvill.bham.sch.uk for queries about usernames and passwords.) The school website has instructions on how to access emails. Please see the Work from Home portal.

Work will be sent from dedicated email accounts for different subjects e.g.

science@baskvill.bham.sch.uk

Students can edit work and return it to the address from which it was sent.

If my child does not have digital or online access at home, how will you support them to access remote education?

We recognise that some pupils may not have suitable online access at home. Please phone school main reception or email enquiry@baskvill.bham.sch.uk for advice.

How will my child be taught remotely?

We use a combination of the following approaches to teach pupils remotely:

· recorded teaching (e.g. Oak National Academy lessons, video/audio recordings made by teachers)

· electronic copies of stimulus material, worksheets and assessment quizzes

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

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

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 recognise that students may have difficulty engaging with remote learning. This may be because the student makes a clear distinction between “school time” and “home time”, or that they need a great deal of support to access and complete work and Parents/ Carers may, at times, not be available to offer this support. You will know what is best for your child, and what they can cope with. Feedback from you through the email platform will assist us in making sure an appropriate amount of work is set for your child.

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

· Subject teachers and Faculty Leaders will monitor email accounts to check for completed work.

· Tutors or other class staff will phone regularly and will discuss your child’s engagement with remote learning as part of that conversation.

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:

· Subject teachers will provide brief feedback by email about individual pieces of work.

· Teachers will follow this up with more detailed feedback when students return to school.

Remote education for self-isolating pupils

Where individual pupils need to self-isolate but the majority of their peer group remains in school, how remote education is provided may differ from the approach for whole groups. This is due to the challenges of teaching pupils both at home and in school.

If my child is not in school because they are self-isolating, how will their remote education differ from the approaches described above?

Where possible we will try to provide remote education as described above. Occasionally, particularly if the work being done in class is new to students, we may provide work to individual students isolating which is enrichment or extension of concepts already covered in class.