This information is intended to provide clarity and transparency to pupils and parents or 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.
The remote curriculum: what is taught to pupils at home
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.
What should my child expect from immediate remote education in the first day or two of pupils being sent home?
- The Pastoral Team and the Senior Leadership Team will post updates on Dojo regarding whole school information.
- Your Class Teacher will contact you via Dojo to outline what to expect over the coming days.
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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?
- Class Teachers will be prioritising your child’s EHCP targets. This could be a list of activities associated with your child’s EHCP tracker and suggestions for activities that will also support the development of these skills.
- 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, PE will be sending out a range of activities that can be set up in your home with household objects. Music will be sending out links to music and ideas for associated activities.
- Through discussions with your class teacher, it may be possible to provide you with work packs to supplement online learning.
- The content of the remote learning will be differentiated to support students individual learning styles. Eg suggestions for sensory activities to explore at home, interactive online learning, live video links through TEAMs.
- You will be sent links to available websites supporting the teaching of specific subjects or areas, including video clips.
- The Senior Leadership Team, Pastoral Team and Specialist Teachers will send out a regular video on Dojo. This video will enable students to continue their familiarity with the wider school community.
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Remote teaching and study time each day
How long can I expect work set by the school to take my child each day?
- Through recognising the needs of Woodlands Students and working in partnership with families, we do not set firm expectations of the length of time spent on remote learning each day. Rather we will tailor learning to your child and be flexible in our anticipation of daily achievements.
- We prioritise the wellbeing and happiness of your child and family and therefore will work with you to ensure that learning activities are an enjoyable and positive experience for all concerned.
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Through recognising the needs of Woodlands Students and working in partnership with families, we do not set firm expectations of the length of time spent on remote learning each day. Rather we will tailor learning to your child and be flexible in our anticipation of daily achievements.
We prioritise the wellbeing and happiness of your child and family and therefore will work with you to ensure that learning activities are an enjoyable and positive experience for all concerned.
Accessing remote education
How will my child access any online remote education you are providing?
- At Woodlands School we are using Dojo and Microsoft Teams to deliver online remote learning.
- Microsoft Teams is accessed through your child’s welearn email. account. If you are experiencing any difficulty in accessing online learning, please contact your child’s teacher between the hours of 8am and 5pm on weekdays.
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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. We take the following approaches to support those pupils to access remote education:
- You will receive an online survey where you can detail any support that you may need regarding devices and internet access.
- When we issue a device, we will ask you to complete a loan agreement.
- If you do not have online access at home, we have limited capacity for drop offs to supply hard copies of learning materials. Please advise your class teacher of your requirement.
- Work on paper can be returned to the class teacher by photographing your work and sending it in either by email or through Dojo. If you need support to do this, please contact the class team.
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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 will take responsibility to provide you with differentiated learning tasks for your child. We realise that families have varying capacity to support their child with their learning and we will not place undue pressure on you to deliver the learning tasks on a daily basis.
- Our minimum expectation is that we are able to make at least weekly contact with you and your child to fulfil our safeguarding obligations and ensure the wellbeing of our school community.
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Safeguarding and online safety
- For video calling to pupils, staff are asked to use a school device and be in school. Exceptions to this are to be approved by SLT. The preferred video calling app is Teams as this is linked to professional email accounts accessible through the welearn platform. We ask staff to get consent from parent/ carer/ pupil (if cognitively able to consent) in advance of the video call and advise what time it will happen.
- We ask for 2 staff members to be involved in group meetings unless otherwise arranged with SLT. If making a video call to a single pupil, it may feel overwhelming to have 2 adults so would ask that the call is made in earshot of another member of staff.
- Video calls are not to be recorded unless advised by SLT as this raises issues about the storage of videos of pupils.
- Each call will start with a brief of safeguarding and online practice. Young people will be made aware that if they feel uncomfortable at any point they are free to leave the call and directed to how they can do this. They will be made aware who to direct any concerns about the call or anything that is said in the call to.
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How will you check whether my child is engaging with their work and how will I be informed if there are concerns?
- You will receive a weekly call from a member of your child’s class team for a check in and to offer support. You will be sent a Dojo message to arrange a suitable time.
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How will you assess my child’s work and progress?
Our approach to feeding back on pupil work is as follows:
- The class team will feedback to you and your child verbally by telephone calls. We recognise that this is more effective than written comments.
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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 all of our pupils have special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) and that they 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:
- In some cases, students may be supported through home visits from familiar staff. The staff may support your child to access their local community through a local walk.
- We will continue to make access to our therapies available remotely to our families.
- Our Educational Psychologist remains available to identified families.
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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?
- If a pupil is self-isolating, as long as the child and their family are well, you will access remote learning as detailed above.
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