Expectations

This information is to provide clarity and transparency to parents and carers about what to expect from remote education where national or local restrictions mean children need to remain at home.

If you have any questions, suggestions or concerns please contact the school via email (admin@st-barnabas.leicester.sch.uk) or phone (0116 2767612).

What is taught?

The first day may look different to other days whilst staff prepare for a period of remote learning. From the second day the 'normal' remote lessons will begin.

We aim to teach the same curriculum remotely as we do in school wherever possible and appropriate. We will make some changes in some subjects, such as in PE where space and equipment at home may be limited.

We expect that children will have remote learning for around the same amount of time as if they were learning in school.

We understand that some children may not have access to the internet at home. We will lend tablets or laptops to children to borrow where this is the case.

• If a child is classified as vulnerable or new to the country, we will support them to develop the necessary computing skills for them to be able to access their remote learning.

We will use a mix of live lessons and websites for remote learning.

We will assess learning in many different ways, such as quizzes or whole-class feedback. Teachers will check learning and understanding using emailed work, chat boxes and/ or scores in quizzes etc.

Every effort will be made by staff to ensure that work is set promptly on appropriate platforms but school cannot guarantee that the chosen platforms will work on all devices.

If a class bubble is isolated, the children will be sent home with their home reading book in addition to work set on Purple Mash, Times Table Rock stars and Google classroom

How will school support children with additional needs?

Some children, e.g. those with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND), may not be able to access remote education without support from adults at home.

We understand the difficulties of this, so we'll work with parents/ carers to support them in the following ways:

• If your child is unable to access remote learning, we will offer your child a place at school (where possible) so they can continue to there
• We will discuss your child’s needs, and complete a risk assessment where necessary

What if only 1 or 2 children are self-isolating?

Where individual children need to self-isolate, but most of the other children in their class are still in school, remote education will be different. This is because of the challenges of teaching children who are at school and at home.

They will be given access to the same lessons as those that are happening in school, and where lessons cannot be done at home (such as PE due to a possible lack of space and equipment) other ideas will be given instead.,

What can you do at home to help?

• Provide a quiet working space, preferably at a table
• Provide/collect any resources from school to enable your child to learn – exercise book / paper, pencils (including colours), ruler, rubber, sharpener, mini white board with own pen/rubber etc.
• Take care of computing equipment, making sure they are charged or plugged in and ready to use
• Encourage your child in their learning
• Children should be contactable during the school day
• Children should complete work to any deadline set by teachers – all children need to have completed at least one activity and have logged on by 9:30am
• All children and parents must adhere to online safety guidelines
• Should anything be unclear in the work that is set, parents can communicate with class teachers via the class email address or by contacting the school office. They should make clear which year group and subject the question relates to
• We encourage parents to support their children’s work, by viewing the work set together, and then making appropriate plans to complete the work. This can include finding an appropriate place to work and, to the best of their ability, supporting pupils with work encouraging them to work with good levels of concentration
• Should accessing remote learning be an issue, parents should contact school promptly and alternative solutions will be made available (e.g. paper copies of work, loan of iPads etc.). These will be discussed on a case-to-case basis

 School will make phone calls home if children do not log in and no reason is given, or if the children aren't participating as expected.

We use the following websites/ app for supporting learning (please click on the links):

Times Table Rock Stars

Numbots

Purple Mash

Google Classroom

All of these work on mobile phones, tablets, iPads, laptops and computers. Times Table Rockstars, NumBots and Google Classroom can also be downloaded from the Google Play Store or the Apple App Store.

More details can be found in our guide to remote learning.