2nd February 2021
Dear parents
Remote Learning Update
Thank you to all parents who completed the remote learning survey sent out from school last week. The survey provided a great insight into the views of our parents and pupils and will be used in school to further improve the offer we provide for pupils.
Given the short turnaround in moving from ‘in school provision’ to a ‘blended learning approach’ – incorporating pupils in class as well as learners at home, I am pleased with the survey results which gave the remote learning provision a resounding thumbs up.
Over 98% of parents and pupils said that they felt remote learning was valuable. With over 83% giving the provision a score of 8, 9, or 10 out of 10. These results were incredibly positive.
| Do you find remote learning valuable for your child? | |||
| Yes | 98.6% | No | 1.4% |
| Does your child find remote learning valuable? | |||
| Yes | 98.6% | No | 1.4% |
| How long does your child spend on remote learning activities per day? | |||
| < 1 hour | Between 1-2hrs | Between 3-4hrs | More than 3hrs |
| 6.9% | 20.8% | 19.4% | 52.8% |
| What score would you give the overall quality of remote learning provision in school? | |||
| 1/10 | 2/10 | 3/10 | 4/10 |
| 0% | 0% | 0% | 0% |
| 5/10 | 6/10 | 7/10 | 8/10 |
| 4.1% | 4.1% | 8.2% | 19.2% |
| 9/10 | 10/10 | 83.6% scored 8, 9, or 10 | |
| 24.7% | 39.7% | ||
In school we know that remote learning is not easy for pupils, parents or teachers. Pupils miss working with their classmates, parents have to take on increasing responsibility for their child’s/childrens’ education and teachers have to balance teaching children at home and children in class.
When looking at the comments from parents and pupils, they mainly fell into the following categories.
| 83.6% score your support to their children 8, 9, or 10 out of 10. | |
| What parents like: | What children like: |
| • It’s planned and well organised• There is a balance between paper and computer
• Children see their friends |
• Seeing their friends and teachers |
| What could be improved | |
| • IT capability – home and school• Clear behaviour routines for pupils
• More opportunities for one to one/small group sessions with pupils |
|
On Friday the 29th of January, staff in school went through the results of the survey and looked at ways in which the provision, can be strengthened further. Hopefully from this week you begin to notice some different activities taking place in class. These could involve more opportunity for individual pupil or group meetings with teaching staff or a more targeted approach to support pupils who might be finding things difficult working from home.
IT support
One issue that could be providing some difficultly for parents and pupils is the access to hardware: computers or tablets, software, the programmes used on a computer or data, connecting to the internet or 4G signal.
If parents are experiencing difficulties, the school have a number of options which can help. On Monday the school were delighted to receive 7 new laptops from the #compsforkids project in the area. This project, supported by Ladies of Steel and the Marske and New Marske Community Group, has provided these computers so that they can help pupils in school. Many thanks to Cllr Karen King and Penny Hestletine for coordinating this and bring the computers to school.
If any parents feels that the remote learning provision for their children is being hampered by the lack of access to a computer, please contact school.
Another IT issue parents could have is data. The school have managed to secure a small number of 30GB sim cards that can be used to help support access to the internet. After speaking to a parent on Monday, she highlighted that an issue her family have is that children are accessing the broadband to do school work, parents are access the broadband to do their work and the system is continually crashing. An option to fix this is to allow some members of the family to access the 4G network using these cards. This means that any usage, will not come from the monthly allowance of the bill payer.
If any parents feels that the remote learning provision for their children is being hampered by issues to do with accessing the internet, please contact school.
Critical Worker Parents
Please can we continue to request that if a critical work is not working, they should be looking after their child/children at home. If the critical worker is working from home, the pupil can have a place in school, but if they are not working, the pupil should be at home engaging with the remote learning tasks in school.
At present we have around 100 pupils regularly in school. This is five times more than the original lockdown. Over the coming weeks we are expecting more pupils to come into school as vulnerabilities increase due to remote learning and would be concerned that the aim of reducing community transmissions would be impacted by more and more pupils in school.
One way to address this is to ensure that if you can look after your child/children at home when you are not working, you do. Our main aim as a school is to provide places in school when critical workers need them.
Zoom Assemblies
It has been wonderful seeing our remote learning pupils taking part in our Zoom assemblies within school. It really does provide a sense that although our school community are working in different ways, we are still one school. These assemblies have covered issues such as how to deal with the challenges of working like this, as well as how others have overcome difficult times in the past.
This Friday will be the next Zoom assembly for KS1 and KS2.
The Reception, year 1 and year 2 assembly will be at 10:45am. Pupils can join this by clicking on the following link.
- Topic: KS1 Zoom assembly
Time: Feb 5, 2021 10:45 AM London
Join Zoom Meeting
https://us04web.zoom.us/j/72492435267?pwd=Um8xdkJWRkhZUkp4NVdZMXlpUVNJdz09
Meeting ID: 724 9243 5267
Passcode: 4WnPTx
The year 3, 4, 5 and 6 assembly will be at 11:00am.
- Topic: KS2 Zoom assembly
Time: Feb 5, 2021 11:00 AM London
Join Zoom Meeting
https://us04web.zoom.us/j/79100962178?pwd=QWNrZTZyK0EyempYaTZnUTRvWG1FQT09
Meeting ID: 791 0096 2178
Passcode: FxU5Fe
Hopefully, with the announcement last week that there could be plans to get all pupils back to school from the 8th of March, I am increasingly confident as we approach the end of the spring term, more and more pupils will be in school. Until then, the blended approach we are currently using in school is the most effective way to make sure all pupils in our school community are learning.
Yours faithfully
Mr Dooris
Head Teacher