During the school year, there may be times where your child(ren) will need to access their learning remotely for example when school is closed or if your child needs to self-isolate. On such occasions, your child’s class teacher will continue to teach and support your child in a range of ways to enable them to learn from home. This will depend on the year group that your child is in.

Your child will already have log in details for the above packages but as always you are able to email us at ststephensprimaryschool@wolverhampton.gov.uk if you need us to resend them to you.

If your child is new to us and has not yet received their log in details, please do contact us on 01902 558840 or using the email address above.

When the decision for remote learning to be accessed has been made, usually your child will be able to access their learning the same day. Information such as a timetable and guide on how to access learning will be sent to you by your child’s class teacher so please do keep a look out for this important information!

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 and music as we understand that children learning from home may not have access to some of the resources required for lessons.

We expect that remote education (including remote teaching and independent work) will take pupils broadly the following number of hours each day:

Nursery and Reception - Approximately 2-3 hours

Key Stage 1 - Approximately 3 hours

Key Stage 2 - Approximately 4 hours

This may vary depending on individual circumstances as appropriate in liaison with parents, the child and school staff.

Your child may need to access their learning through:

- Microsoft Teams (usually children in Year 1 to 6)

- Marvellous Me

- TTRockstars (usually children in Year 2 to 6)

Information for each year group will be sent to parents via Marvellous Me.

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 already sent a survey to parents to establish who may not have a suitable digital device or online access at home. We understand that sometimes circumstances change so please do contact us on 01902558840 or at ststephensprimaryschool@wolverhampton.gov.uk to let us know.

We do have a small supply of laptops in school that your child may be able to lend if there is no device in the home. We will contact you by email or phone to ensure that your child is able to access their learning from home when school is closed or your child/family are self-isolating. If a device is lent, a loan agreement will need to be signed by you and the laptop should be returned when your child returns to school.

If your child is unable to access their learning online, please contact school so that we can provide support for them to do so or an alternative where appropriate.

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

Some examples of remote teaching approaches:

• live teaching (online lessons) through Microsoft Teams

• activities shared through Marvellous Me by your child’s class teacher

• recorded teaching (e.g. Oak National Academy lessons, YouTube videos on our YouTube channel)

• commercially available websites supporting the teaching of specific subjects or areas, including video clips or sequences such as the BBC, Oak Academy, Education City, TTRockstars and Rising Star Reading

• printed paper packs (e.g. worksheets) where appropriate

Your child should engage with their learning each day for example:

• On Microsoft Teams: this means that your child should join the lessons available to them each day following their home learning timetable and submit work through Teams for each lesson.

• On TTRockstar: your child should complete their timestable activities at least once per week

It is important that your child is well supported to engage with their learning each day and we thank parents for encouraging their child to access their learning. We will provide parents with a timetable that they can follow with their child so that there is a routine similar to that in school that the children can follow.

Each day, we will monitor that your child is engaging with their work both by attending the lesson/accessing the activity as well as by monitoring the submission of their work. If your child has not attended lessons, we will call or text you to see if we can support your child with accessing their learning. We understand that sometimes there may be valid reasons where your child cannot engage with their learning that day for example if they are not well. In these instances, please call school to let us know so we can provide you with advice.

If your child is regularly not engaging with their learning, we may call or text you to share our concerns and offer support. If your child continues not to engage, we will explore the reasons why and try to find alternative ways of supporting them to engage with their learning. In some cases, it may be that we are able to accommodate your child in school if they are vulnerable.

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 pupil work is as follows:

• Feedback from the teacher verbally during live lessons each day

• Feedback from the teacher written in the chat during live lessons each day

• Feedback from the teacher written on work submitted through the Teams channel

• Feedback via email in response to work submitted

• Feedback through digital packages such as scores achieved

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:

Our SENCO, Mrs Ratcliffe, is available as always to provide support for your child when they are learning from home. Please do call or email school to let us know if you would like further support or guidance.

Mrs Ratcliffe will keep in touch with you each week by calling to see how your child is getting on with their learning and by offering support via phone call. She may also invite you to her small group or 1-1 sessions through Teams each week if appropriate where there is time to talk or a story that she may read with you for example.