MENU Remote Education Provision 5th January 2021 HomeLastest NewsRemote Education Provision Dear Parents and Carers Following last night’s announcement of the new lockdown I felt it was important to update you on where we are up in response to the fact that most pupils will need to access remote learning until at least February half-term. Previously we had understood that this was likely to be a shorter term provision. What is crucial now is that we enable remote access for our pupils and then ensure that we provide high quality resources and teaching for our pupils. We have been preparing for this eventuality and in deciding on how this will operate going forwards have taken into account the feedback from pupils and parents as to what has worked well in previous provision and how it could be improved. The information below is intended to provide clarity and transparency to pupils and parents or carers about what to expect from our remote education. The remote curriculum: what is taught to pupils at home What should my child expect from immediate remote education this week? Pupils in Years 11 and 13 will be set work on our Google Classroom platform on Tuesday 5th January. Starting on Wednesday 6th January Pupils will need to attend a Progress and Aspiration Form Time starting at 8.35am. This will take place using Google Meet and the invitation to this will be posted in their Google Classroom. Pupils will be set work in Google Classroom in line with their timetabled lessons for the day. Teachers are piloting some live lessons between now and Friday 8th January, prioritising initially Years 11 and 13. 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 in line with our Learning Programmes, following the sequenced curriculum.. 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, particularly where a specialist learning environment would be needed eg Food technology. Remote teaching and study time each day How long can I expect work set by the school to take my child each day? We expect that remote education (including remote teaching and independent work) will take pupils broadly the following each day: Pupils in All Year groups Minimum of 5 hours including taught lessons Accessing remote education How will my child access any online remote education you are providing? Google Classroom at St Mary’s At St Mary’s we already use Google Classroom to support your child with Home Learning and to set homework. You can access Google Classroom in a number of different ways: 1) from the St. Mary’s website www.stmaryswallasey.com 2) by searching for it or going to https://classroom.google.com/ 3) by downloading the GoogleClassroom to a mobile device through the AppStore or equivalent. Your child will have all their classes automatically populated in the classroom which staff will use to post and assign work. Your child will be given instructions on how to access it, however, the following brief instructions will help you at home. Your child can login to the classroom by using their username and password which follow a generic format: Username This is your child’s current username for the school’s network (year entered into St Mary’s followed by the first four letters of their first name, then a dot, then the first four letters of their surname) with the school domain following. Example for Harry Smith Harry Smith Year 7 (started in 2020) – 20harr.smit@stmaryswallasey.com or Harry Smith Year 8 (started in 2019) – 19harr.smith@stmaryswallasey.com Password 6 digit date of birth followed by your child’s initials in capitals So, if for example Harry Smith’s date of birth is 7th of April 2008, his password is 07042008HS 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 issue or lend laptops or tablets to pupils, wherever our resources allow and will continue to pursue additional devices to close any shortfall We are able to provide some internet access for those who do not have good access or sufficient data at home by providing dongles and we have sourced some SIMs with a large data package If this still proves to be problematic we can provide materials, please contact the school office to inform us of this Pupils can bring completed work packs to the school reception to drop off but not enter the school buildings to their teachers if they do not have online access. How will my child be taught remotely? We use a combination of the following approaches to teach pupils remotely: We will be increasing the amount of live teaching (online lessons) Teachers may utilise recorded teaching to support their lessons Teachers may include workbooks, worksheets or other suitable materials Pupils might be asked to use textbooks, revision guides and reading books pupils that they have at home Teachers might utilise commercially available websites supporting the teaching of specific subjects or areas, including video clips or sequences eg Hegarty Maths Long-term project work and/or internet research activities may be an element of the provision but this will not be typical as most provision will be individual lessons Previous Cancellation of BTEC and Vocational Examinations – January/February 2021 Next Parental Update – 31st December 2020 2021 © St Mary's Catholic College St Mary's Catholic College is part of the Holy Family Catholic Multi Academy Trust