Elm Hall Primary School

Remote Education Provision at ELM HALL Primary School

This information is intended to provide clarity and transparency to pupils and parents or carers about what to expect from remote education when it is not possible, or contrary to government guidance, for some or all pupils to attend school.

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. These are the learning objectives already planned for each year group as part of our usual curriculum. However, we have needed to make some adaptations in some subjects. For example, we may need to alter the focus in practical subjects due to the equipment and materials required.

Remote teaching and study time each day

We expect that remote education (including remote teaching and independent work) will take pupils broadly the following number of hours each day. This includes the lessons set by the teachers daily and the daily practice expected in reading, spelling and times tables.

Accessing remote education

We will continue to use the platforms that we already use to support learning in school. We use these platforms for home, and other activities to ensure pupils and parents are confident with their use in the event we need to close part of or all of the school.

• If your child is in Nursery or Reception log in to Tapestry at tapestryjournal.com
• If your child is in year 1 -6 log in to DB Primary. The link for this is at the bottom right of our school website home page.

If you do not have a username and password or have problems logging on please contact the school office.

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. We take the following approaches to support those pupils to access remote education:

• We have been allocated a small number of laptops and these are leant to families following a survey about access to devices and discussions with families
• If devices are loaned from the school, parents complete a loan agreement and adhere to this whilst the device is on loan
• Parents are supported with accessing increased data if necessary. Some providers are increasing the data allowance available to some families (EE, Three, Sky Mobile, SMARTY, Tesco Mobile, Virgin Mobile).  If parents have any difficulties, then please call the office and we can sign post to appropriate support. 
• Paper work packs are provided for some families and these can be returned weekly for feedback.

How will my child be taught remotely?

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

Some examples of our remote teaching approaches:

• Reception children have daily practice activities and a weekly menu of theme based activities to select from which match the theme being taught in class. Videos uploaded by the teachers support specific teaching points e.g. phonics
• Year 1 – 6 children have 4 lessons per day, 1 x English, 1 x maths and 2 x topic. These are taught in a variety of ways as described below.
• recorded teaching (e.g. video/audio recordings made by teachers, Oak National Academy lessons, White Rose maths videos)
• commercially available websites supporting the teaching of specific subjects or areas, including video clips or sequences
• worksheets and written activities uploaded to be completed at home and then uploaded on to DB primary
• printed paper packs produced by teachers (e.g. workbooks, worksheets)
• R – Y6 pupils have weekly live tutorials for a small group with their class teacher to review previous work and preview the work to come.

What are your expectations for my child’s engagement and the support that we as parents and carers should provide at home?

• We hope that pupils will engage with each day’s work and upload their work to DB primary in their work folder or complete the paper work pack
• We hope that parents will support their children by helping them navigate to the work, complete the work and upload the work, if necessary.
• We hope that parents will establish routines for the day, if possible.
• We know that remote learning can be really challenging for parents who are working from home and/or caring for other children. Please support your child to complete as much as possible in your circumstance.
• If at any time during remote learning, parents/carers need support or have any questions about learning from home, we ask that they contact the class teacher in the first instance for further support. This can be done by emailing or phoning the school office.

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

• Teachers and LSAs will check Tapestry or DB Primary daily to monitor each child’s engagement with the work set
• If we observe that children have not engaged with their remote learning, we will make contact with the families, to see if there other ways in which we as a school can support, whether with further resources or advice/ideas.

How will you assess my child’s work and progress?

Feedback can take many forms and our approach to feeding back on pupil work is as follows:

• When giving feedback face to face to children within the classroom we use a variety of methods.  In a similar way, this will take many forms, while learning remotely. Feedback may not always mean extensive written comments for individual children.
• When learning remotely, we will use a variety of feedback methods.  These may include teachers making comments on a child’s piece of work via our DB Primary or Tapestry platforms and the comments facility.   Teachers may upload answers to for example, maths work so that children can self mark at home.
• When giving feedback, we may not comment on every single piece of work but on those where teachers can support children in the next steps and/or feel additional encouragement is needed.
• Pupils will have weekly tutorials with their teacher in small groups to feedback on previous work and preview future work.

Additional support for pupils with particular needs

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:

• For those parents with children who have additional needs, we will work together to support you in giving ideas and activities that you can use to support your child’s learning at home.  Regular phone calls are made to all parents of pupils on the SEND register to offer support
• Some pupils with SEND are provided with individualised work packs