Remote Education at Sackville
This information is intended to provide clarity and transparency to pupils and parents or carers about what to expect from remote education where national or 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.
The remote curriculum: what is taught to pupils at home
A student’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.
What should my child expect from immediate remote education in the first day or two of pupils being sent home?
Over the first couple of days work will be set for students. This will be flagged via the Show My Homework website/app, to which every student can log in with their school Google account. Whilst waiting for this work to be set, some tasks can be accessed from our generic remote learning classrooms, for individual students who are isolating, which can be found here.
Following the first few days of remote education, will my child be taught broadly the same curriculum as they would if they were in school?
Within a couple of days of isolation starting we will begin delivering a diet of remote learning with some live teaching and some work set on SMHW as before. The blended learning will aim to deliver the existing curriculum the students would normally cover at the time they are isolated.
On occasion, the order of teaching may be rearranged if some topics lend themselves better to remote learning.
Remote teaching and study time each day
How long can I expect work set by the school to take my child each day?
Students should expect to be engaged with learning for about five hours per day. The exact time will depend on the time taken to complete tasks. For exam years, work set may take longer than this.
Accessing remote education
How will my child access any online remote education you are providing?
The principal platform in the school is Google’s G Suite of applications, including Docs, Sheets, Slides and Meet. Meet is used for live lessons, which are scheduled in the students’ calendars. Classroom is used for the setting and assessing of assignments.
Tasks set are recorded on Show My Homework so parents can monitor task completion.
Other platforms are used in specific subject areas, such as Educake in science and Hegarty Maths.
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 students may not have suitable online access at home. Because of this, we ensure that all live lessons can be followed on a phone, and this may sometimes be necessary in homes with several siblings. Where data limits are a problem, we can supply a data dongle, and apply for free data upgrades on behalf of the students.
We loan out laptops and Chromebooks, both those provided by the government and our own fleet. Loans of these are arranged through the appropriate year office, and parents pick the devices up from school.
On rare occasions we also print work out and it is returned to school Reception for marking.
How will my child be taught remotely?
We use a combination of the following approaches to teach pupils remotely:
- live teaching (online lessons)
- recorded teaching (e.g. Oak National Academy lessons, video/audio recordings made by teachers)
- learning tasks provided for students to complete produced by teachers
- commercially available websites supporting the teaching of specific subjects or areas, including video clips or sequences
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?
We very much appreciate the involvement of our community in supporting the students to access our remote learning. Looking through SMHW and Google Calendar each day adds real value to their engagement. We offer on average three live lessons per day for students (more in older years) and this allows the establishment of a routine at home which supports learning.
Our pastoral team call home early in each lockdown, and repeatedly to students who need support. Tutor sessions are also held during which students can ask for help with their remote study.
We ask parents/carers to keep an eye open for emails which might be the first notification of a fall in engagement.
How will you check whether my child is engaging with their work and how will I be informed if there are concerns?
Teachers report to year offices concerns about engagement each week, and parents and students are contacted by phone or email.
Each student is graded in each subject for engagement with remote learning, and the quality of work submitted once every half term. These grades are shared with parents/carers by email.
How will you assess my child’s work and progress?
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 in accordance with the assessment policy, with at least one significant piece of work assessed every three weeks in each subject. Feedback will be shared on the platform where the work is submitted, usually Google Classroom.
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 access the remote curriculum as we do when they are in school.
Our SEN teachers will contact students to check how they are managing to access work, and will modify materials as necessary.
For some students, there really is no substitute to being in school, and bespoke small groups sessions are made available for such students across the school week.
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?
Individual students will access lesson materials either via the dedicated Google classroom for that subject, or via the generic remote learning classrooms. The work set will follow the curriculum of those in school, and submitted work will be assessed alongside that of their peers.