Remote education provision: Information for Parents and Carers
This information is intended to provide clarity and transparency to students and parents or carers about what to expect from remote education where national or local restrictions require entire cohorts (or bubbles) to remain at home. For details of what to expect where individual students are self-isolating, please see the final section of this page.
The remote curriculum: what is taught to students at home
At Birchwood Community High School, our ultimate aim is to try and follow the intended curriculum whether students are in school, working from home, or a combination of the two.
What should my child expect from immediate remote education in the first day or two of students being sent home?
Immediate remote education will consist of independent work set on Microsoft Teams for all subjects. Depending on the circumstances, some subjects may take longer to upload work, so students are encouraged to focus on Maths, English & Science in the first instance. Expectations will be clearly communicated on Microsoft Teams and through email/Group call.
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 have needed to make some adaptations in some subjects. For example, in PE lessons, students may be set a series of challenges to develop personal fitness. In practical subjects such as Music, Drama and Art, work set may be a combination of practical work (where possible) and theory/project-based work. Similarly, some topics may rely upon face to face teaching so lessons/topics may be tweaked/changed accordingly.
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 students broadly the following number of hours each day:
|
Key Stage 3, 4 & 5 |
4-5 hours Students will access 5 lessons per day. Each lesson will last 45-50 mins |
If entire cohorts are sent home, but we still have other year groups in school, we will follow our usual timings for the school day. In the instance of a full school closure, where all students remain at home, we will follow the KS4 timetable. Timings will be clearly communicated with parents/carers and students.
Accessing remote education
How will my child access any online remote education you are providing?
All students will access remote education through the Microsoft Teams platform and have all received training on how to use it. Students will be able to access this website through all devices including Xbox & Play station. To access this for the first time, students can go on to our website, go to the ‘Online access’ tab and click Microsoft Teams. They will login using their school login details. They are also able to download all Microsoft applications for free. When student’s logon to Microsoft Teams they will see they are added to a Team for each subject/class. Clicking on the Team will take them to the class area. In each lesson, they will either be able to join a live lesson or complete the independent work set by their teacher. All classwork can be found under files/class material and will be clearly labelled.
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 students may not have suitable online access at home. We take the following approaches to support those pupils to access remote education:
A survey form is issued for parents to complete to indicate the level of device available to their family. From this a list is drawn up and Laptops are issued one per family in the first instance. Contact is made by Telephone and group call (Text) to confirm when laptop is ready to collect.
As more equipment is available families with multiple siblings are then issued with further laptops.
On Collection a contract is issued detailing the terms of use, together with laptop information – Make, model , serial number which needs to be signed by an adult – a signed copy of this agreement is given with the laptop and a copy is kept in school. The laptop remains the property of BCHS and the return of the equipment after use is signed for on the same laptop contract. A copy of how to access teams is also provided with each laptop.
If your child needs access to any printed materials, please let the school know and all resources will be available to collect from the school office. Alternatively, we can arrange for printed materials to be sent home.
Please contact us on:
01925 853 500
contactus@birchwoodhigh.org
If your child is unable to submit work online, they can submit it by hand when they return. If they are working from home for longer than ten days, the work can be dropped off at the school office or sent in by post. Where this is not possible, we will work with you to find a solution.
How will my child be taught remotely?
We use a combination of the following approaches to teach students remotely:
- interactive teaching (live lessons)
- Independent tasks
- recorded teaching (e.g. Oak National Academy lessons, video/audio recordings made by teachers)
- printed paper packs produced by teachers (e.g. workbooks, worksheets)
- textbooks and reading books students have at home
- commercially available websites supporting the teaching of specific subjects or areas, including video clips or sequences (Kerboodle/Educake/Hegarty Maths)
- long-term project work and/or internet research activities (practical subjects only)
We have worked extremely hard to balance our academic studies with student’s health and well-being and we have considered carefully the amount of screen time students are exposed to. At least 50% of all subjects excluding practical will be interactive lessons, which means your child will have direct contact with their teacher. Independent lessons are also set to enable students time to work at their own pace and where possible come away from the screen. We believe our remote education provision compliments the current DFE guidance on remote learning.
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?
First and foremost, we must establish a successful partnership between school and home. Whilst we are confident that the quality and amount of work set offers your child a broad and balanced curriculum, we do rely upon your support to encourage your child to engage with remote learning. Each day of remote education begins at 8.50am with registration and a PSHE session with the form tutor. It is essential that all students attend this. As well as maintaining contact with the tutor, this session also ensures they are still receiving their PSHE education, including year group and house assemblies. If your child does not attend registration, this will be followed up with a phone call home that morning. If your child is sick, please report your child’s absence in the usual way.
As parents/carers we need your support to ensure your child sticks to the routines of completing schoolwork at the right times and is provided with a space they can work without distraction. Where this is not possible, please let us know and we will do what we can to help.
Please reinforce clear boundaries with your child during their remote education, such as not allowing them to use their mobile phones (unless being used for the lesson.) The schools behaviour policy still applies and sanctions are in place for any students who mis-behave online or show a pattern of not engaging with the work. Likewise, students will continue to receive ATL 1’s for outstanding work and effort.
How will you check whether my child is engaging with their work and how will I be informed if there are concerns?
Students engagement with remote learning is monitored daily. A register is taken for all interactive lessons as well as a morning register with tutors. Where students are not engaging, this will initially be followed up with contact home to try and resolve any potential issues.
Where students are attending lessons but there are concerns with the quality or quantity of work being done, the individual teachers will make contact home.
Our Polaris team run a daily report on student participation in lessons and a weekly report on students highlighted by teachers for not submitting work. Where concerns are raised, contact is made with home and a plan is put into place to improve the quality of engagement with remote learning.
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 student work is as follows:
- Teachers may deliver a lesson through Microsoft Teams and set work to be completed through the remainder of the lesson. This work may be handed in electronically using the Assignments function in Teams or teachers may ask students to email it to them.
- With assignments submitted through Teams, there is a feedback function built into the platform, where teachers can mark or comment on student work. This may not happen for every piece of work submitted.
- Teachers are not expected to mark every piece of work in depth, but they will be checking all work and addressing any misconceptions with the students in the following lesson. Again, this may not be in written form but done verbally during the lesson.
- We may uses quizzes though online forms to assess student understanding and knowledge. This provides instant student feedback and scores are recorded so that the teacher can address common mistakes in future lessons.
- How we provide feedback remotely mirrors how your child receives feed back in school.
Additional support for students with particular needs
How will you work with me to help my child who needs additional support from adults at home to access remote education?
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:
Where possible, and with parental agreement, we will invite our SEND students into school to be part of the Key Worker Bubble to ensure that we can continue providing targeted learning and interventions to meet their individual needs.
Where this is not possible we will:
- Prioritise these students and provide them with an electronic device to access learning.
- Provide parents (if needed) with additional resources from school that their child may need including paper packs of work or equipment such as coloured exercise books or overlays.
- Regularly contact SEND students and parents/carers who are finding it difficult to cope and offer further support
- Facilitate remote support from specialists. This may include Speech and Language therapists, Mental Health Support Workers and the Educational Psychologist.
Decisions will be considered on a case by case basis, avoiding a one size fits all approach. Please contact our SEND Co-Ordinator, Jo Roscow (jroscow@birchwoodhigh.org), with any specific queries.
Remote education for self-isolating students
Where individual students 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.
If my child is not in school because they are self-isolating, how will their remote education differ from the approaches described above?
Where individual students 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 students both at home and in school.
We will continue to set work for all subjects on Microsoft Teams, but this will be found in the Year Group Teams not the subject Teams. Your child will need to go to files/class material and there they will see folder for all subjects. They must continue to follow their timetable and work through the activities/lessons/projects pre-planned.
KS3
- The work set supports our knowledge rich curriculum, enabling students to access the key knowledge needed for the current unit of work.
- Our online learning platform will support our curriculum, but we will not be uploading our daily lessons/power points as these are dependent upon teacher explanation and could result in lack of engagement and student misconceptions, leading to more work for both the teacher and the student.
- Embedding key knowledge into the long-term memory will be the focus of the work set. Examples may be retrieval exercises/reading/low stake quizzes/tasks linked to knowledge organisers/research/online lessons such as Oak Academy if the content supports the curriculum
- Students will not upload work but there is an expectation that when they return, they will discuss and share their work with their classroom teacher. The use of online quizzes and self-assessment tasks are also highlighted as good practice in the DFE guidelines, so where possible could be incorporated into the work so the teacher can assess progress
KS4
- Week by week overviews will be on to Teams, which outline the key knowledge covered each term. Next to each week, there will be activities for students to do if self-isolating. These activities will be linked to the Knowledge Organisers/retrieval tasks and where appropriate, revision sessions.
- Ideally, students will work in their books so they can share progress but if this is not possible, they will be asked to share their work with teachers on their return so progress can be assessed.
- Again, the use of online quizzes and self-assessment exercises will be used to monitor progress and the completion of work.
- Teachers may also use the assignment function on Teams to assess work and provide feedback.
- Where possible, students may be invited to join a live lesson through Teams. The hybrid approach does not work for all subjects or topics so this will be at the teacher’s discretion. If a lesson is live, this will be communicated through the subject team and your child will receive a notification.
KS5
- Teachers of KS5 will set work weekly on the subject teams and where possible invite students to live lessons
For all Key Stages, we advise if your child need support accessing work, needs further guidance or require additional work, they email their subject teacher directly.
