For our youngest group, distance learning is about partnering with parents to provide a minimum of 1 to 2 hours a day of meaningful learning activities. Some parents want to go further and the learning plans will accommodate this aspect as well.

The same guiding principle applies: "How can we best prepare children for the next stage in their learning journeys?" Great progress and growth requires sustained learning throughout the year.

Some parents have communicated that they would like day to day and/or weekly guidance on how to provide meaningful learning activities that will continue to stimulate and support their children's learning development.

We will provide content on SeeSaw and, if possible, we will also provide weekly printed material that parents can pick up. The children's responses can be submitted on our class app SeeSaw (in the format of photos). Time table drafts can be found here

Teachers will have 1 to 1 video sessions with children during the course of the week on Zoom. Teachers will also call parents to discuss any learning goals, activities and concerns each week.

Each class will get essential activities for the day/week; parents will receive an outline of these activities. The activities will fall into 3 categories; essential, recommended and additional. Parents could choose to focus on the essential activities only, if they are pressed for time.

The learning goals for each week will also be shared.

Our 4 year olds will be joining the primary section in the next academic year.

At Discovery, the 5 year old class is the first class of primary. We have aligned both the French and English sides to meet international standards. This requires that our 5 year olds follow a modified curriculum that engages primary content earlier. In the UK system, primary starts with Year 1 at 5 years old. Our 4s will therefore be joining Year 1 in the next academic year.

To clarify our curriculum expectations, for example, in reading, according to our standards, our 4 year olds should read and understand simple sentences. They should use phonic knowledge to decode regular words and read them aloud accurately. They should also be able to read some common irregular words. They should be able to demonstrate understanding when talking with others about what they have read.

It is important that effective learning continues for all children and that they all complete the academic content for this term. Please review the learning standards for the end of the 4 year old class here. These are summarised standards for the end of nursery or maternelle at Discovery; the learning goals for ages 3 and 4.

The 3 year old class is also a preparation for the 4 year old class.

The parent or caregiver will be an important part of the learning sessions.

A sample class timetable has been shared on the Discovery Parent’s Website; you can find that here. Your class teacher will also share a time table in the WhatsApp groups for each class. Early Years time tables are available here.

Teachers are sharing these with parents directly. For those parents that confirm their participation, home learning plans will be shared by your class teacher. Additionally, each class teacher will also organise parent calls at an agreeable time, to walk through any questions and concerns parents may have.

Lesson plans/schedules will be shared weekly. Our goal in sharing these is to give parents and students flexibility in how they complete any assignments that are not finished during the course of our school day. We will work to make those plans as clear and concise as possible, with any additional websites linked into the plans, so that parents and students don’t feel bogged down by the level of information provided. This information is supplemental to the teacher providing the daily schedule and managing most of the lesson implementation throughout the week.

Discovery firmly believes that building understanding in any language is an asset for our students. We advise all families to continue to converse and work with their children in the language that is most comfortable, in family interactions. Do not feel like you need to strain to use the language students are learning in their class. Our teachers will provide instruction and support in that language. We are confident that the language work they will receive in class with the support of their teacher will be adequate during any distance learning period. Additionally, Discovery will provide all French class documents in English as well to accommodate any families that would be better served in English.

We have a web page dedicated to this - please click here to learn more about how to support your child.

We strongly recommend that 1 parent spares at least 1.5 to 2 hours every morning to support their child's learning. Parental involvement is a strong predictor of academic achievement. This is a high impact and best-case scenario that we advocate for every Discovery child. Read more about the research here.

1.5 - 2 hours of parental support will cover essential learning and, considering the age of Discovery children, the benefits go way beyond the subject matter itself.

However we know circumstances vary, so for parents who may follow their own schedule on some days, or need to catch up on school content at a different time, find below the asynchronous elements of the schedule:

*All teacher guided lessons will be recorded in case parents need to catch up lessons at a different time.

*The morning meeting and closing meeting will be recorded and posted in SeeSaw within 24 hours or less.

*All exercises or activity documents will be posted in SeeSaw and can be completed at any time.

*Class teachers will do a review of all completed work on a daily basis, especially for work done outside the school schedule.

*Our core online tools for math and language allow children to take learning paths according to their pace, timing and level of mastery. These tools give teachers daily data and feedback about how the children are doing even when they use them at different times of the day. This data allows real time responsiveness during our small group sessions and during 1 to 1 sessions in the afternoons.

*Class teachers will provide tailored feedback during one to one sessions or guided small group lessons where applicable.

We greatly appreciate the partnership that Discovery has with our parents in making online learning meaningful. Our three concrete asks of parents are - some form of adult supervision for students for 1.5 - 4 hours a day, an electronic device with internet access for each student, and fees paid. We also ask for patience during the first days of any switch to at-home/online learning to allow the teacher and the children to adjust. There will be an adjustment period where we learn what works and what doesn’t work well in supporting our students.

That said, we are confident that we will make at-home/online learning periods valuable to your child’s continuous learning journey. Also, your feedback as families will be invaluable to us as we launch into online learning as required. We will continue to host parent meetings to collect feedback every term. We hope you will join us during all scheduled meetings to share your experiences and to build strong relationships with your teachers. Great relationships will help us to continually improve our school!

Our goal for any period of distance learning is to minimise the need for parent involvement. However, particularly at the beginning of the switch, we anticipate that parents or an adult supervisor will be needed to help students adjust to learning online in a digital space. We know that this is a challenging ask to make for all parents, but we believe that it is the most sustainable path forward for distance learning.

For children aged 5 and below, adult supervision for 1-2 hours of learning a day will remain essential to the distance learning process. The older children will need less and less of their parent support after the first week.

We advise parents to work within age appropriate attention span expectations. Some children can only work 10 minutes at a time. Parents and teachers typically build 5 minute breaks based on the child's attention capacity. During the short break, they could do something physical or relax a little and get back into their work thereafter. They may not have to leave the room for this. Focus on short, high quality work periods with short breaks in between. Most young children will learn anything as long as it is playful and built to be fun and interesting. The younger the child, the more playful their learning should be.

Here are some expectations:

Attention Spans by Age

Childhood development experts generally say that a reasonable attention span to expect of a child is two to three minutes per year of their age. That's the period of time for which a typical child can maintain focus on a given task.

Average attention spans work out like this:

• 2 years old: four to six minutes

• 4 years old: eight to 12 minutes

• 6 years old: 12 to 18 minutes

• 8 years old: 16 to 24 minutes

• 10 years old: 20 to 30 minutes

It's worth noting that some developmental researchers put the upper limit at five minutes per year of a child's age, meaning a 2-year-old could be able to focus on a task for up to 10 minutes at a time. Of course, these are only generalizations and how long a child is truly able to focus is largely determined by factors like how many distractions are nearby, how hungry or tired the child is and how interested they are in the activity.

Extending a Child's Attention Span

A few simple strategies might help your child find greater focus.

• Bring creativity to tasks your child doesn't enjoy. A kid who dislikes math won't focus well on math homework, so let him work out math problems in finger paint on an easel first and copy the work onto the homework sheet later.

• Try fidgets, a wide category of products that kids can manipulate while focusing on other tasks.

• Check in frequently with your child when they're working on hard tasks. A kid who feels overwhelmed or confused by the project they're working on will check out and get distracted quickly. At the beginning of the task, help them identify potential stumbling blocks. If question 5 seems especially daunting, for example, start with that one and help your child figure out how to approach it.

• Build in short breaks for tough tasks. A 12-year-old might be able to give 40 minutes of focus to a project when it's broken into two 20-minute chunks with a five-minute break in between.

We strongly believe that all students at Discovery should complete the full academic year by attending online/at-home learning periods. Each and every school year, we set a course of learning that ensures that our students cover all of the material set out for them in our international learning standards. Missing periods of school would mean that your student would miss out on opportunities to master some of those key learning standards for their grade or age level.

Missing these academic days will make it more challenging for your student as they are introduced to new academic content when they return to school. We know that this global pandemic is pushing many of us to make hard choices regarding what is best for our families, and we understand that each family will make their own choice on how to proceed with learning for their child.

Discovery firmly believes that our distance learning model will be the best way to prepare students for the next stages in their learning, and we are confident you will see the value of this online and at-home learning as we continue ti engage in these approaches.

Discovery is more than willing to listen to all individual family situations and to devise a reasonable plan for tuition payment. Please contact our Discovery Admin team to work out any payment plan.

You can speak to Gloria our Head of Operations on +250781111002

You can also email info@discoveryrwanda.org

The overarching goal of online learning is to keep our students on the path to success in their academic and social/emotional learning journeys. We want our students to be as prepared for their next learning stages as possible. This means that our curriculum focus while online and at-home learning is necessary will be on the essential learning standards for their current grade level. All students in the bilingual section have a primary language of instruction or their morning language; this will be the main medium of instruction for online learning. Their afternoon language or secondary language is usually built through immersion, which is not possible in periods when we are working online. In addition, effective distance learning for young learners requires a focus on core learning objectives. The children do not have the stamina they would have in a school setting so we have to focus on what we most urgently need them to succeed at.

Our main areas of focus will be math, literacy (particularly reading fluency, comprehension and writing), and habits of learning. In the Primary Section, each day will include a math lesson, guided reading sessions in small groups, a writing lesson and independent work aligned to those lessons. Additionally, each week will contain 1-on-1 lessons for each student in the class as well as work on a project that teaches students the basics of research in a topic. For bilingual students, Discovery is choosing to focus on their core language during online learning which means they will resume their bilingual classes on return to in-person school.

We truly value your feedback! If you have feedback that is specific to your family, please contact your student’s teacher first. If you believe your feedback would be edifying for your class, the class teacher would, again, be the right person to start with. If you have general feedback that pertains to the whole school, feel free to contact a member of the school leadership team.