Remote education provision at Christ Church School Information for parents

This information is intended to provide clarity to pupils and parents or carers about what to expect from remote education when pupils are required to work remotely.

At Christ Church your child will be provided with remote education if:

• • There are National or Local restrictions on the opening of schools
• • Your child is unwell with Covid-19 symptoms (if they are well enough)
• • Your child is required to self-isolate for a period of time
• • Your child is shielding​

Please note: if your child is off school for any other reason remote learning will not be set.

The remote curriculum: What will be taught to pupils at home?

At Christ Church School your child will receive online education from the first day of absence. Where feasibly possible, pupils learning remotely will receive the same curriculum and skills remotely as those the children in school. In the event of National or Local restrictions, teaching will continue to follow the same curriculum the pupils would have followed in school. 

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 guided teaching, independent work and Google meets) will take pupils broadly the following number of hours each day:

Staff will be setting a Literacy and Maths challenge each day plus an additional task linked to another curriculum area. Your child’s allocated learning time includes their daily reading and any educational online games recommended by their teachers used to supplement their learning.

These hours are recommended in government guidance. Please do not feel that your child must be working for their full allocated time every day and that this must be done within school hours. Wherever possible we find that having a set routine for children helps them and they work best with a structure. However we fully appreciate that all families have different sets of challenges with many parents and carers having to work at home and support their child’s home learning. Please fit in the learning opportunities to suit your family circumstances.

Accessing remote education

How will my child access any online remote education you are providing?

Pupils at Christ Church School are confident at using Technology as part of their learning programme and this will continue during any period of remote learning.

Pupils in Reception, Year 1 and Year 2 will access their learning through SeeSaw.

Pupils in Year 3 to Year 6 will access their learning through Google Classroom.

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. To address this we have a system whereby children may loan devices from the school for the period of time they are at home. Parents and carers will be required to sign a loan agreement and the device must be returned when the child returns to school. Priority for loan devices will be given initially to those vulnerable members of our community and then allocated on a case by case basis. Please contact your class teacher or Mrs Elfred if you would like to request a device. We are also able to support families with additional data/wifi

How will my child be taught remotely?

We use a combination of approaches to teach pupils remotely. This will include: 

• Lessons recorded by our staff and uploaded to the pupils learning platform

• Planned independent activities uploaded to the pupils learning platform • Work from online learning platforms e.g. Phonics Bug, Times table Rockstars, Numbot, BBC Bitesize, Top Marks

• Commercially available websites and resources used to supplement the learning eg BBC Bitesize, Oak National Academy

• Long-term project work and/or internet research activities

As a school we are not providing live teaching. We want the learning to be accessible for our children at all times as we understand that family life is not always easy when pupils are learning remotely and that families may be sharing devices.

We are however providing some live well-being sessions for pupils and some sessions where they may discuss learning and receive support with this. This might include:

• • ​Shared lunches

• • Social conversation time

• • PSHE sessions

• • Learning drops in

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?

At Christ Church School we expect our pupils to engage daily with their learning, however we have not set specific times as we realise that remote learning access will be different in for every family. Google Meets are the only time critical points in the day but please note, children do not need to attend all of these.

The work teachers are setting each day will help pupils continue their academic learning. Alongside this, we ask parents to support their child by encouraging them to:

• • Have a go and try their best
• • Explain and work through problems together
• • Be independent wherever possible in their learning.

In addition to this we ask parents to support their children’s wider education, where possible for example:

• • Making meals together
• • Gardening
• • Playing board games
• • Constructing lego models
• • Taking part in creative role play
• • Being artistic and producing pictures
• • Sitting together as a family and having conversations

All of these activities support the learning and development of children.

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

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.

At Christ Church School a dedicated team of teachers and support staff will be going through work submitted online throughout the school day. They will be providing regular feedback to pupils on their work and providing support where necessary. Staff will keep a record of work completed

If your child is not accessing their learning, staff will be contacting you via email or telephone.

Please be mindful of the fact that our staff are also juggling their home and work life.

• • There is no expectation that staff respond to emails after 4:30pm If you send a message or upload work after this time, you may not get a response until the next day. Likewise, staff are not obliged to respond over the weekend or in holidays.
• • Our Working from Home staff teams are supporting up to 50 children at home, setting work, monitoring feedback and keeping in touch through phone calls and Google Meets. Your child may not get feedback on every piece of work submitted. This does not mean that staff have not seen their work. In school children get regular verbal feedback rather than written feedback on every piece (see Marking and Feedback policy). Therefore, some writing tasks and in foundation subjects the response they get may be delivered in whole class feedback.

Additional support for pupils 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. Each pupil, may require a bespoke plan, which will co-ordinated by our SENDCo Mrs Jo Porter, this could include:

• •Staff preparing differentiated activities to meet the need of the specific pupils
• •zoom calls for short targeted activities
• •Regular welfare calls
• •Additional physical resources provided to support learning
• •Paper copies of online work being provided

If parents have any concerns, please contact the office and Mrs Porter (Our SENDCo) will contact to you.

Remote education for self-isolating pupils

Where individual pupils 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?

Our intention is to ensure that we will continue to provide the same high quality education for all children, regardless of the reasons why they are self-isolating, providing they are well enough to do so.

Class teachers will aim to provide work which as far as possible mirrors what is happening in school. Children should expect to receive:

• • Collective worship.
• • Maths
  • • For older children this may include the slides used for that day’s learning or worksheet tasks
  • • Younger children will be given more practical tasks to promote fluency, counting and number recognition which preferably do not needing printing. 
• • English
  • • • A writing task for the day
    • • A book or extract from the classbook if possible. 
    • •Any other tasks that are being completed in school that can be made accessible to children working at home. This may include RE, Science, Art etc 

Pupils who are unwell do not need to complete the tasks online, for the duration of their illness. We do, however, ask parents to contact the office, as they normally would, to report their child’s sickness.