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. There will be resources and activity ideas available straight away and linked to current topic work.  

What should my child expect from immediate remote education in the first day or two of pupils being sent home?
We will ensure that there will be a range of activities and interactive links that children and parents can select from. Teaching staff will also make initial contact, via Tapestry and our 1:1 phone calls to families will begin.  

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?
We teach the same curriculum remotely as we do in school wherever possible and appropriate. We will share phonics, English and maths learning that follows the National Curriculum and works in line with our topic overviews. We will focus on developing and securing the fundamental skills in the core areas of writing, phonics and maths as we would do in the classroom. In our Early Years nursery and reception classes the tasks will support the development of age-appropriate skills, identified in the Early Years Foundation Stage Framework.  

How long can I expect work set by the school to take my child each day?
We expect that remote education will take pupils broadly the following number of hours each day: 

• Early Years  / Nursery
  There will be a selection of practical activities, video clips and ideas provided daily. Parents can access and use these flexibly based on their knowledge of their child’s interests and levels of engagement.  
• Primary school-aged pupils
  Key Stage 1 (Y1 and Y2) will be given daily resources linked to phonics, English and maths. This will provide about 2 hours of learning per day. There will also be a weekly topic planner (Y2) and daily activities (Y1) that can be selected from, to give an additional hour per day or used flexibly as parents choose. These might include RE, PE, PSHE and computing activities. 

This would equate to about 5 hours per day and over the course of the week there would be a mixture of online learning, practical tasks and some live sessions / communication time.  

How will my child access any online remote education you are providing?
We will share all online learning via Tapestry. For live sessions, we will look to use Google Meet and links to these will be shared via Tapestry. We will send all of the resources we are able to, via email should there be any technical difficulties with Tapestry.  

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: 
We will work with these families on a 1 to 1 basis. We will be flexible to support the needs of individual children, families and their circumstances. If access to printed material is helpful, for example, we will provide this. All parents have direct access to their child’s class teacher via Tapestry and we will remain in regular contact with all families. Parents are also able to contact the school via the school email (office@ardengrove.norfolk.sch.uk). 
 

How will my child be taught remotely?
We use a combination of the following approaches to teach pupils remotely: 

• Live sessions (including smaller than class-sized groups) 
•  Suitable recorded teaching (either recorded by the teaching staff or we will direct families to resources such as Oak National Academy lessons or Ruth Miskin phonics) 
• Printed paper packs produced by teachers (e.g. worksheets)  
• Suitable websites that support the teaching of specific subjects or areas 

What are your expectations for my child’s engagement and the support that we as parents and carers should provide at home?
For our infant-aged children we are aware that it will require very high levels of adult support to access learning. The teaching team actively encourage families to access the activities on a daily basis to help build in a routine of learning each day. Teaching staff also encourage families to share their child/ren’s learning and add a brief comments to indicate how their child/ren has/have found the learning, several times each week or more often if they are able to. 

How will you check whether my child is engaging with their work and how will I be informed if there are concerns?T
Tapestry entries are checked daily in every class and any comments or shared work is responded to on the day it was uploaded. Tapestry produces an overview of how often families have logged on. The teaching staff will make phone call contact with any families they are aware of that have not engaged over the course of any week. In addition to this the teaching staff ensure all families are called every fortnight, as a minimum, in order to help and support. We adopt the approach that where engagement is a concern our starting point is to check in on the families’ wellbeing. From this we can discuss what support or help they might need to access remote learning or offer alternative forms of learning.  

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 as follows: 
We will respond to any uploaded work or comments on the day we receive them. The teaching staff will make individual comments as children will be adding individual examples and photographs of how they have completed any learning task. We will support parents by being explicit in the ways their child has been successful. 

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 in the following ways: 
We ensure we make quick contact with all of our pupils with SEND. We will talk to families about what support they need and we will base resources on the child’s learning style and developmental needs. It might include daily contact in some form e.g. Google Meet, a phone call or a message on Tapestry. The frequency of communication and the types of resources could range from online tasks to practical packs sent home. This will be discussed regularly and agreed with families to ensure it is supportive.  

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?
Even in isolation, families will be able to access resources and make contact with the teaching staff as frequently as needed. The teachers will call and discuss appropriate support at the start of an isolation period. Children will have access to relevant maths, phonics and topic learning either online or packs can be provided. Teachers will keep in contact and communicate any feedback as work is photographed and uploaded onto Tapestry.