Remote Learning
Remote Learning Rationale
At THE ISLAND LEARNING TRUST, we want our schools to ‘be the best they can be,’ this mission extends to the provision of education, care and support during periods of school closure. During periods of closure, we remain wholly committed to meeting the needs of our young people socially, emotionally, physically, spiritually, culturally and academically. Our approach to remote learning has been crafted with these principles in mind. A weekly balance of learning will be on offer to cover:
- Literacy, including reading, numeracy, science, topic, PE, assemblies too.
Research has shown that pupils respond best to a blended learning approach; therefore, we are offering a suite of learning that supports this. Pupils will be able to access learning in a variety of formats:
- Videos, paper based tasks, online challenges, daily Zoom sessions to reflect upon their learning and to benefit from social contact with their peers, teachers.
We are committed to providing the same curriculum that our children would have received if they were learning in school. We will also provide feedback on learning, in a variety of ways, dependant on the school and age of the child, see individual school websites for further datails.
Remote Learning (FAQ)
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1. Why are live lessons not on offer?
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Live lessons can present challenges re timetabling for children and families:
We recognise that the availability of devices, internet access in some family situations will prevent this from practically being possible. If live learning is the core offer every child in every class needs to be logged on and ready to start each session at the same time. If a child loses connectivity they miss that input session. Our video clips are short and can be viewed at any time, offering families flexibility with timings, this offers options for shared devices and for parents who are home working. The videos can also be watched more than once if children/parents are unclear about the learning to be undertaken.
Live lessons can present safeguarding challenges:
Pupil behavior can disrupt learning without teachers easily being able to intervene due to distance. Pupil disclosures might be made and/or inappropriate language used with no filtering. Teachers may not have a home environment that is conducive to provision of this. Adhoc interuptions will happen: dogs barking, deliveries etc.
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2. Why are classes Zooming? What is the purpose?
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Research has shown that the most effective method of remote learning is BLENDED LEARNING a mixture of:
paper based learning- the physical output of sessions online (Video input, Mathletics and TTRS, AR and My on reading) face-to-face sessions (Zoom meetings) to positively review learning, reinforce expectations, praise pupils for engagement and achievement.
The social isolation experienced during lockdown 1 was also thought to be more damaging to pupil’s wellbeing and motivation than the than the actual lost learning:
Zooming allows pupils to see their friends, feel connected to their peers and know that they are still a loved and valued member of the class, school. Children without these experiences are less likely to want to engage with remote learning.
Our offer has devised around these cornerstones of effective remote provision and indeed from the experience and feedback we received from the earlier school and bubble closures.
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3. Can I speak to my child’s teacher at anytime?
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Teachers will do their best to maintain email contact with parents throughout this period. However teachers are unlikely be able to respond immediately to queries, they are working throughout the day: responding to work, liaising with the other teachers and TAs in their year teams to plan new learning, uploading work to the website etc. In addition, they might well be supporting their own children in their own homes with remote learning. We not expect teachers to be on duty 24 hours a day so parents need to be sensible and realistic in their expectations re timescales for responses.
If parents have an urgent need to be in contact with a teacher please ring, the school office and the duty senior leader will offer support in the first instance.
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4. What shall I do if my child is refusing to work at home?
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Make contact with the class teacher, they will support you with intervention and ideas including:
Talking 1 to 1 with a child to support engagement and to set expectations Ensuring they join in with the Zoom sharing sessions to promote the enthusiasm Ensuring you child is asked to contribute to the Zoom meeting
This lockdown we expect that all children will engage with learning and class teachers will be completing a daily register to support the tracking of this. We will routinely be making contact with parents if we are not seeing evidence that your child is completing any of the learning.
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To support the well-being of pupils our wellbeing team ( FLOs, SENDCOs, PSLs) will be in regular contact with vulnerable pupils and families. In addition, all websites contain links for wellbeing resources for parents.
In addition to FSM vouchers, staff are providing food and breakfast parcels to families in need.
Pupils who do not have access to online learning have been and will continue to be offered home learning packs delivered to their homes. Our wellbeing team is in contact with a number of vulnerable families to provide additional support, as required
Please find the links below to the Remote Learning information for individual schools:
Halfway Houses Primary School: https://primarysite-prod-sorted.s3.amazonaws.com/halfwayhousesprimaryschoolkent/UploadedDocument/59f43e9c4d9e46df80cb6e4a52d26a89/hh-remote-education-provision-january-2021-6.pdf
Minster in Sheppey Primary School: https://primarysite-prod-sorted.s3.amazonaws.com/minstersheppey/
UploadedDocument/9129c46e83c242a5be001ddcfa352595/remote-learning-policy.pdf
Sunny Bank Primary School: https://primarysite-prod-sorted.s3.amazonaws.com/sunny-bank-primary-school/UploadedDocument/8cf4d648f96f4b9db94d46ae05fd3b63/remote-learning-policy.pdf