Remote Learning Provision

In the event that a “bubble” of pupils need to go home from school and self-isolate at short notice, they will be given paper copies of work - either prepared by the teaching team or a published educational resource such as the CGP range of workbooks.

Pupils will also be reminded of their logins and passwords for Google Classroom and instructed to log in to the platform the next morning for further tasks/activities and to find out about live/recorded lessons.  

If families are contacted over a holiday/weekend and pupils are instructed to self-isolate, the school office will contact them the next morning that school is open with instructions on when to log in to Google Classroom and work packs will be available to collect from the front desk that afternoon.  

After the first day of self-isolation  

Once year group teaching teams have had the opportunity to prepare and upload work onto Google Classroom and print and copy paper work packs, ABS pupils will be taught the same curriculum remotely as is taught normally at school and will broadly follow the same curriculum map shared with families at the start of the term.  

Adaptations will need to be made for example, for Science where planned practical experiments may not be possible, or Art - where pupils may not have certain resources at home.  

Pupils who are shielding or quarantining after returning from abroad  

For individual pupils who need to follow government advice and stay at home due to medical conditions and for those who must quarantine after time abroad, teaching teams will ensure that there is work available on Google Classroom and that work-packs/books are also available for collection or to be posted. Teachers will be in touch with the families of these children through emails and phone calls and a Senior Leader will contact the family at the start of the pupil’s time away from school.  

The remote education provided should be equivalent in length to the core teaching pupils would receive in school and will include both recorded or live direct teaching time, and time for pupils to complete tasks and assignments independently. The amount of remote education provided should be, as a minimum:  

Key Stage 1: 3 hours a day on average across the cohort, with less for younger children  

Key Stage 2: 4 hours a day 

ABS staff are committed to providing this.  

 Should pupils complete all their lessons and tasks, the school has subscriptions with “Times Tables Rockstars”, “Numbots'' and “Bug Club” which pupils can access independently. The pupils’ time on these educational resources is monitored and recorded by subject leaders. Teachers will also provide a “Topic Matrix” with ongoing activities and project work for pupils to work on at their own pace.  

 While our Early Years staff teams are providing some live and recorded teaching sessions for pupils in Nursery and Reception, our youngest pupils are encouraged to develop their physical and creative skills through a range of activities and investigations both indoors and outdoors.

Paper work-packs are available for all Early Years pupils to help them develop their fine motor skills and staff encourage the pupils to go on treasure hunts, sing, dance, read and construct with their parents/carers as they would at school.  

The Headteacher will take responsibility for this or will authorise a member of staff to do so only if it is safe.  

Google Classroom is the school’s online learning platform. Every child has a log-in and a password.  

We recognise that some pupils may not have appropriate online access at home. We take the following approaches to support those pupils to access remote education:  

When possible, we will loan a laptop (from the Dfe) to a family. A range of criteria will be taken into account when we do this as we only have a limited number available. Those pupils:  

• with EHCPs  
• considered vulnerable who are not attending school  
• who have additional educational needs  
• who have more 2 or more siblings  
• who are in upper KS2 with more work to complete each day  
• or whose device is broken will be prioritised.  

We will also issue a device to enable an internet connection on request.  

We will photocopy/print work on request.  

Families will be informed when work-packs are available to collect from the front desk. In some circumstances these may also be posted or staff may be able to hand deliver work to families.   

At ABS, we use a combination of the following approaches to teach pupils remotely:  

• Recorded lessons (by a teacher in the same year group as your child)  
• Live lessons (by class or specialist teachers known to your child)  
• Links to Oak National Academy and BBC Bitesize lessons  
• Printed paper packs produced by year group teaching teams  
• Printed tasks/activities produced by intervention teachers  
• Textbooks such as those from the CGP range  
• Ongoing Topic Matrices - based on pupils’ current topic - eg “The Victorians”  
• Research and presentation tasks  
• Art activities planned by the specialist Art teacher  
• Workouts and PE challenges led by the PE teacher  
• PE lessons led by class teachers  
• Recorded Music sessions led by the specialist Music teacher  
• Directed time on “Bug Club”, “Times Tables Rockstars” and “Numbots”  

A key message to parents/carers of ABS pupils is that we understand the challenges families face when there are several of you “working from home”, sharing table/floor space and devices.   

We prefer to call this time “home learning” rather than “home schooling” as we appreciate that many of you are doing your own jobs whilst supporting your children. Therefore, we do not expect all tasks/activities to be completed every day and we know that some days more work gets done than on others.  

We hope that parents/carers are able to support us by keeping in touch with us, helping their children to get started on tasks and ensuring the following safeguarding points:  

• Encouraging their child/ren to use a background or blur what is behind them whilst taking part in live lessons to avoid situations where staff/pupils can see what is happening in the privacy of their homes.  
• Reminding children that Google Classroom is our way of educating every child remotely and that it should not be used as a forum to socialise.  
• To not allow children to stay on in Google Meets or arrange them independently. We appreciate that the pupils want to socialise but without supervision, this will create safeguarding challenges. Parents may want to arrange Zoom/Microsoft Teams chats with other families if they would like their children to meet up in this way. Google Classrooms should not be used.  

Class teachers, support staff and senior leaders will be monitoring pupils’ presence in live lessons, their submission of work and how often they access educational resources such as “Times Tables  

Rockstars” daily. If pupils have not been seen online for any length of time, families will be contacted, usually by telephone and sometimes by a member of the senior leadership team, to check that all is well.  

For those children who are working on paper packs, teachers will be in touch with families to let them know when more work is available and to check in on pupils’ progress,  

Ongoing marking and feedback contributes to our assessment systems and therefore staff will mark to the learning objectives.  

Paper work-packs will be marked if returned and staff will keep in touch with the families of the pupils accessing remote learning in this format.  

Additional support for pupils with particular needs  

Some of our pupils with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND), may not be able to access remote education without support from adults at home. In the event of a school closure, the majority of these children are eligible for a place at school. However, if parents/carers would like to keep them at home, or if they are in a bubble that is self isolating or they are shielding/quarantining, we will support families through:  

• regular liaison with the Inclusion Manager  
• differentiated work prepared by class teachers or intervention staff  
• facilitating opportunities for remote support from external specialists - supplying resources that are appropriate to the pupil’s needs  
• continuing to meet the requirements of EHCPs if in place.  

Finally, all staff at ABS understand that not every piece of work set online will be completed that day and if live lessons are taking place, although there is the expectation that as many pupils as possible will attend, staff appreciate that there are days when this will not be possible for all families.

If staff have concerns about a pupil’s attendance they will report them to a senior member of staff but they also acknowledge the challenges families face when working from home. In the same way, staff will respond to families’ comments and questions in as timely a manner and as clearly as possible, whilst also managing their working hours realistically.