Remote Learning

As a forward thinking Academy, we have been at the forefront of delivering high quality Remote Education since the first lockdown and are confident that the education and wellbeing checks that we are now providing as a Virtual School, mirror those which would have taken place, were our pupils here in front of us.

We seek regular feedback from parents/carers, students and staff, to make sure that we are delivering the very best lessons for our students, to engage, enthuse and ensure that they make progress. We will continue to adapt to meet the needs of our students, and serve our community, moving forward.

We will continue to deliver a broad, balanced and accessible curriculum to all pupils working remotely from home.

The principles underpinning this are:


Accessing online remote education

Our preferred delivery model will be Microsoft Office TEAMS, which we use in school and students are already familiar with. Work will be shared by teachers via a discrete TEAMS invite for each subject/class. From TEAMS, each student will be able to access:

Students can access our remote offer using a variety of digital devices, e.g. laptops, Chromebooks, tablets, phones and iPads. All devices will require internet access and students should note that Apple iOS devices can sometimes alter the formatting of documents. If you have any problems accessing our Remote Education, please contact school reception and we will support you. Departments will also use a variety of ICT resources to develop assessment and feedback.


Expectations

We expect all students to engage fully in remote learning so that lost learning is kept to an absolute minimum. As we are following a familiar timetable and timings, with ready access to the class teacher, we believe that students will require limited support from home. We are confident that our approach will provide students with a clear structure enabling them to progress well through learning but it does require commitment on their behalf to ensure good attendance and meaningful participation in live lessons. We recognise that some students may find this approach to learning more challenging than others for a variety of reasons. Where this is the case, we will work flexibly with parents to manage any constraints or difficulties in accessing the full curriculum. Our wider pastoral support team will also engage with parents and students on an individual basis in such situations.

Whilst we trust that our approach places fewer demands on parents / carer we do know that parents play a vital role in supporting their child whilst working at home. Parents can support both the school and their child by:


Safeguarding

We have clear guidelines and expectations for both students and staff around online learning and live lessons – see our Remote learning policy: January 2021, which is available on the school website. We have identified potentially vulnerable students and have a regular contact plan in place for those students; this is led by our pastoral teams. Staff and students are encouraged to raise any concerns, no matter how minor they feel they may be, to a trusted person and/or key individuals including:

Where concerns are raised they will be managed sensitively and professionally. We will investigate any and all concerns to verify the facts and take appropriate action as required. Investigations into student absence from lessons will carefully consider all evidence to ensure safety of students is paramount in our considerations. Where appropriate we will work closely with parents and outside agencies.


Additional support

We recognise and understand that some pupils, for example, some pupils with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND), may not be able to fully access remote education without support from adults. We are aware of the demands this may place on families therefore we will work with parents and carers to support those pupils to replicate the support in school as much as we can, while utilising technology to offer additional support to students with additional needs. Specifically, this could include: