This information is intended to provide clarity and transparency to pupils, parents and carers about what to expect from remote education if local restrictions require entire cohorts (or bubbles) to remain at home.
For details of what to expect where individual pupils are self-isolating, please see the final section of this page.
A pupil’s first day or two of being educated remotely might look different from our standard approach, while we take all necessary actions to prepare for a longer period of remote teaching.
You should expect contact from your child’s tutors to establish how best to present the work to you and identify any resources the school may need to provide such as laptops in order for your child to access the remote education. Work packs and video lesson invite links will also begin arriving in your email box and post box. Login information will be given to Google classrooms. Some lessons will begin.
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, practical based subjects such as food technology and DT lessons may provide project based work packs that can be done using resources widely available in the home and not specialist equipment while oprviding guidance for this and feedback via video calls.
We expect that remote education (including remote teaching and independent work) will take pupils broadly the following number of hours each day:
Primary school-aged pupils – 3 hours on average per day
Secondary school-aged pupils not working towards formal qualifications this year – 4 hours on average per day
Secondary school-aged pupils working towards formal qualifications this year – 4 hours or above on average per day
These times follow the Department for Education guidelines however we recognise that this can be a difficult feat for some our students with their special educational needs, and for parents who may be supporting mutliple children’s remote education at home while working from home themsleves. Therefore we will endeavour work collaboratively with families, putting in place reasonable adjustments as necessary, so that pupils with SEND can successfully access remote education alongside their peers.
The school be sending out individual timetables for each child with contact details of their subject teachers. Video teaching will be conducted via ZOOM and links to these meetings will be sent to parents by the subject teachers, and will follow the school remote learning policy.
Google Classrooms is used by teachers to set online work, parents will be sent via email invites to lessons and instructions on how to sign up and access these. Children can also access feedback and ask questions via the feed on the lesson pages.
Work packs will be provided to support learning and these will be sent home via post.
For some practical subjects such as food technology, design technology and art additonal resources may be sent home by the school where needed.
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:
The school will endeavour to provide laptops to those who need them and assist them in accessing the remote learning offer provided. Parents should contact the school via telephone: 01304 373866 or email: info@ripplevaleschool.co.uk for more information on how to arrange this.
If, for any reason, you are unable to access online learning and do not wish to be loaned a lap-top then please request a hard copy work pack to be sent home to you in the post.
We use a combination of the following approaches to teach pupils remotely:
We realise that for many of our students completing school related work at home is very difficult. During this time our staff will attempt to work with parents to find the method of delivery and amount of work to be completed that fits parents and children best. Children should attempt and complete as much work at home as they feel able and should not allow working at home to cause them further anxieties or distress during this difficult time of isolation or further lockdown restrictions.
We ask that parents supervise children when using video calls for lessons and assist their children accessing work that will be sent to the parent email. Parents are to also be the first point of call should they wish to raise issues of work set, organise submission of work and for teachers to make contact to check in on the welfare of each student. Therefore, there should be no direct contact made from a teacher to a student or a student to a teacher.
Tutors and teaching staff will be in constant communication with parents in reference to remote education opportunities. Should children not engage in the remote learning opportunities, then tutors will keep regular contact with parents and children to help maintain their health and wellbeing. Tutors, the school’s parent support advisors and the school mindfulness lead will also work collaboratively with parents to establish any further support or resources that the school can provide which may promote engagement and wellbeing.
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:
Where individual pupils need to self-isolate but the majority of their peer group remains in school, their remote education will still follow the above format and the teachers will endeavor to have the students join in remotely to the regular scheduled lessons with further accompanying resources to be sent home.
