AIBU to think there should be Robust Remote School Plans for September (is your school ready?)

[RobustRemoteSchool]

Namechanged for this post: – there has been a lot of discussion on MN and in the media about the plans for children getting back to school in September.

But not much discussion about what will happen when there are local lockdowns or cases in school or pupils self isolation.

The Department of Education’s guidance published on 2 July includes advice on this topic

Department of Education guidance – Section 5: Contingency planning for outbreaks
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Process in the event of local outbreaks

If a local area sees a spike in infection rates that is resulting in localised community spread, appropriate authorities will decide which measures to implement to help contain the spread. The Department for Education will be involved in decisions at a local and national level affecting a geographical area, and will support appropriate authorities and individual settings to follow the health advice. We will provide more information on this process in due course.

Contingency plans for outbreaks

For individuals or groups of self-isolating pupils, remote education plans should be in place. These should meet the same expectations as those for any pupils who cannot yet attend school at all due to coronavirus (COVID-19). See section on remote education support.
In the event of a local outbreak, the PHE health protection team or local authority may advise a school or number of schools to close temporarily to help control transmission. Schools will also need a contingency plan for this eventuality. This may involve a return to remaining open only for vulnerable children and the children of critical workers, and providing remote education for all other pupils.

Remote education support

Where a class, group or small number of pupils need to self-isolate, or there is a local lockdown requiring pupils to remain at home, we expect schools to have the capacity to offer immediate remote education. Schools are expected to consider how to continue to improve the quality of their existing offer and have a strong contingency plan in place for remote education provision by the end of September. This planning will be particularly important to support a scenario in which the logistical challenges of remote provision are greatest, for example where large numbers of pupils are required to remain at home.

In developing these contingency plans, we expect schools to:

• use a curriculum sequence that allows access to high-quality online and offline resources and teaching videos, and that is linked to the school’s curriculum expectations

• give access to high quality remote education resources

• select the online tools that will be consistently used across the school in order to allow interaction, assessment and feedback, and make sure staff are trained in their use

• provide printed resources, such as textbooks and workbooks, for pupils who do not have suitable online access

• recognise that younger pupils and some pupils with SEND may not be able to access remote education without adult support, and so schools should work with families to deliver a broad and ambitious curriculum.

When teaching pupils remotely, we expect schools to:
• set assignments so that pupils have meaningful and ambitious work each day in a number of different subjects

• teach a planned and well-sequenced curriculum so that knowledge and skills are built incrementally, with a good level of clarity about what is intended to be taught and practised in each subject

• provide frequent, clear explanations of new content, delivered by a teacher in the school or through high quality curriculum resources and/or videos

• gauge how well pupils are progressing through the curriculum, using questions and other suitable tasks and set a clear expectation on how regularly teachers will check work

• enable teachers to adjust the pace or difficulty of what is being taught in response to questions or assessments, including, where necessary, revising material or simplifying explanations to ensure pupils’ understanding

• plan a programme that is of equivalent length to the core teaching pupils would receive in school, ideally including daily contact with teachers

We expect schools to consider these expectations in relation to the pupils’ age, stage of development and/or special educational needs, for example where this would place significant demands on parents’ help or support. We expect schools to avoid an over-reliance on long-term projects or internet research activities.

The government will also explore making a temporary continuity direction in the autumn term, to give additional clarity to schools, pupils and parents as to what remote education should be provided. DfE will engage with the sector before a final decision is made on this.

A range of resources to support schools in delivering remote education is available:

• curriculum maps for key subjects for year groups from Reception to year 9 will be published in July. They aim to provide support to schools in developing the ability to switch from classroom teaching to remote provision immediately in case of local lockdowns or self-isolation. A number of education resource providers intend to align their resources to these maps, to further support schools. These maps are designed as a support for schools and are entirely non-mandatory, for use at the discretion of the school.

• DfE has produced a quality assured list of remote education resources which are available to schools and parents for free over the summer term. Where pricing models have changed, schools may consider using some of their catch-up funding on remote resources in line with the access to technology section of the EEF’s COVID-19 support guide for schools

• from that start of the autumn term, Oak National Academy will make available video lessons covering the entire national curriculum, available to any school for free. These are being in developed in partnership with a wide group of teachers and school leaders to develop lessons in the popular topics. The resources will be as flexible as possible, allowing schools to reorder topics and lessons, to match their own plans and curriculum.

• Oak National Academy specialist content for pupils with SEND. This covers communication and language, numeracy, creative arts, independent living, occupational therapy, physical therapy and speech and language therapy. Their provision for next academic year will include an expanded range of content for the specialist sector.

• government-funded access to one of two free-to-use digital education platforms: Google for Education or Microsoft Office 365 Education. Schools can apply through The Key for School Leaders. The Key also provides feature comparison and case studies on how schools are making the most of these platforms.

• a network of schools and colleges for help and support on effective use of tech for remote education that can be accessed through the EdTech Demonstrator Programme.

• laptops, tablets and 4G wireless routers have been made available to local authorities and academy trusts to support vulnerable and disadvantaged children (specifically, care leavers, children and young people with a social worker, and disadvantaged year 10 pupils). Local authorities and academy trusts will continue to own and use these devices (including for catch up purposes) following pupils returning to school in the autumn term. They will be responsible for loaning them in the event that a school is required to close temporarily due to coronavirus (COVID-19). If required, the department will look to provide further device and connectivity support for disadvantaged pupils who would otherwise lack access during a school closure. These devices will be owned by the school.

• In addition to 4G routers provided to local authorities and academy trusts, the Department for Education is working in partnership with BT to offer free access to BT WiFi hotspots for disadvantaged pupils. We are also working with the major telecommunications companies to expand this offer and provide access to free additional data to families who rely on a mobile internet connection while the response to coronavirus (COVID-19) requires pupils to learn from home and access social care services online. More information on increasing internet access for vulnerable and disadvantaged children is available.

Further support is available from:
• The National Cyber Security Centre, on which video conference service is right for you and using video conferencing services securely
• annex C of the guidance on Safeguarding and remote education during coronavirus (COVID-19), as well as statutory guidance on online safety in Annex C of keeping children safe in education.

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Whilst some schools are already doing this – a lot are not. DS’s school (secondary) is not...

During lockdown contact from school has been 1 phone call after 10 weeks. After a few weeks some subjects provided pre-recorded voiceover powerpoints. Interaction and feedback has been minimal.

Some subjects have sporadically provided feedback on work submitted. Some subjects are not following the planned curriculum for the year.

There has been no tutor sessions, no assembly materials, no PHSE.

There have been no online lessons.

I am seriously worried about the next academic year – I don’t know why no one is focusing on or discussion plans for robust remote education provision to sit as a safety net behind the ‘back to school’ plans.

I’d like to get discussed on Twitter too @RobustRemoteSch

Sounds like a plug for Oak Academy?

Why change your name?

I imagine this is pretty much all SLT will be discussing

We are ready, apart from we don't have the laptops yet, and they are only for year 10s anyway. So the children in other year groups will be phones or work packs, as now in fact

We have a decent system for remote learning, but those laptops promised by the government, all 11 of them for mor3 than 10 times that many students, have not arrived. Our school has asked us to give back staff equipment to share with students if we have 1 device at home we can work from, even if that is shared with the rest of the household. I'm lucky as I bought a new laptop anyway (school one is crap) so they have my staff laptop now, but i know a few members of staff now using their own kid's laptops to work (when not in school teaching)

Honestly our trust is been going on about nothing else. I had three emails about it Friday. We all have detailed to do list and it’s been massively implied that we will have to work over summer to put things in place.
Our school is trying to predict every outcome which is exhausting.
The government have been no help and haven’t set out any concrete

I really think the government needs to be doing something centralised.

It's too much work for individual teachers/schools.

What I've been doing since lockdown started would cover what the government have said they want setting. However, with a reduced timetable due to y11/13 leaving and only about 25% of students returning work it's been taking between 40-45 hours a week. With a full timetable in Sep as opposed to 50% (I have a lot of exam groups) it's not sustainable workload wise.

I can't even begin to describe the number of discussions, meetings, emails etc we're having about this.

Please don't assume that all school staff are lazy and incompetent.

The guidance issued is a push towards using Oak Academy in the event of local lockdowns. They are even encouraging schools to abandon their well-planned, bespoke curriculums in favour of following a generic approach that will be published in July. They think that this will allow seamless transition onto Oak's lessons if a school has to lockdown.

I do wish they would stop peddling the lies around the tech they have provided especially when headteachers have been quite clear on twitter that nothing has been received.

It's also important to stress that the daily contact with their teacher doesn't mean live lessons: it's comments on work, emails, phone calls, etc. Something which plenty of schools have already been doing.

My Head has asked staff for feedback on remote learning so far, presumably with a view to making a plan should we need to do it again. (It won’t be Oak Academy!!!) We’re also making plans for all children to return in September. I’m not worried at all, we have time to implement a plan either way. It’ll be fine. I’m actually really looking forward to teaching my new class now!

' glad that schools are talking about this.

The Sutton Trust reported that about 58% of private schools had good enough remote learning, but only about 27% of state schools.

There are all sorts of hurdles, and it's not going to be easy to arrange.

But I agree it's vital, because of the possibilities for local lockdowns, widespread fortnights off for contact isolation, and possibly the reimposition of shielding. Also handy for other dislocations such as flooding or snow, or during other illnesses, etc

My school (independent) has been doing pretty much exactly this since the beginning of the summer term (not using Oak Academy which anyway I think is mostly.for primary?). There's one glaring omission I can see - where's the budget for equipment for teachers to use at home? Even my very decent, very well organised school has been totally reliant on staff providing their own equipment (with the odd bit of reimbursement for e.g. webcams and there is an interest free loan scheme). It is a big assumption that every member of teaching staff across the land has a good quality laptop - you simply cannot teach on a crappy old one that freezes. I would like at least to see some acknowledgement from govt that teachers need equipment too!

Oak academy. High quality sequenced lessons with videos. If you haven't yet watched the lessons, they are good. It is funded by the government exactly for this.

@Barbie222 - I’m just a regular MNer - my only link to education is that I have a DS in secondary who has not had good remote learning from his state school in Lockdown. I have selected some Oak Academy lessons for DS to watch to supplement what he’s had from his own school.

@Iamnotthe1

@FrippEnos - I’ve name changed so this isn’t linked to my previous posting history as this is something I’m talking about in RL quite a bit

@CoRhona there’s no indication that SLT at DS’s school are talking about this or planning for it - they e been very dismissive of parental feedback on the current lockdown learning. No mention of it in the short Headteacher email about back to school plans for September.

I’ve heard quite a bit about Government over egging the actual provision they’ve made for laptops. I wonder why schools and local communities are not coming together to see if people can donate old devices etc

@Iamnotthe1 - good schools currently delivering effective home learning won’t need to use Oak Academy- but many are providing no video teaching (pre recorded let alone live). At least DS’s school has had some subjects with pre recorded voice over powerpoints. I know another local secondary school has not even had that - they’re students would have been much better off watching some Oak Academy & then perhaps submitting some tasks to their own school for feedback.

In primary school locally the remote provision is dire - why not direct parents to some Oak Academy online lessons?

Yep, I’ve had to use my own computer - school provides Me with an iPad but I find creating word docs, ppts etc v tricky on there. One teacher lives in a village and just cannot upload videos - her internet just isn’t good enough. She’s done live lessons (no young children and she’s part time so she can manage this 4x a week) but her connection is very patchy. The same is also true for a number of our students. Oh, and we are independent so largely no issues regarding parents paying for broadband or devices.

What will be needed will be money for equipment for teachers and for children. The govment scheme for laptops only provided equipment for older kids with social workers etc. There are many children who only have a tablet or phone to access work or are sharing a laptop with parents and siblings who will need their own to access the high quality remote learning that people are asking for. Many teachers are also struggling without the right equipment.

The Oak academy is funded to do exactly this job! It is now receiving more government money to improve by adding differentiated lessons etc. The work produced can be submitted to the class teacher to mark. This is what has happened at our school. The children do the lessons and submit. The teachers give feedback. It has worked very well. The problems are down to differentiation and it would also be helpful to be able to make up your own sequence of lessons to fit where you are in the curriculum. They are again being funded so that this can be done.

At least two nearby private schools have schemes under which their families donate tech they have finished with, and the school checks/wipes it and donates to their partner state schools.

The tech has to meet a certain spec, so it's not just any old crap, and there are schools with longstanding links to nearby schools. It's been working really well AFAIK

Possibly drop in the ocean, but a fairly low effort and environmentally friendly scheme

Very basic question -

Does Oak Academy cover GCSEs and A levels? And if so, does it have all exam boards?

What about BTECs, Scottish Highers etc?

I’m really surprised that teachers lack of access to tech is an issue. I would have assumed that most teachers would have a PC or laptop at home to make their pre-pandemic lives easier.

As far as I’m aware there was no proper tendering process for the Oak Academy contract (do correct me if I’m wrong!) That in itself makes me highly sceptical of the government’s motivations and the quality of the end product. If anyone’s going to be teaching my class, it’ll be me. I can tailor teaching appropriately to the cohort and adapt it according to their needs. A nationalised programme can’t do that, it can only lecture.

From the DoE guidance ‘government-funded access to one of two free-to-use digital education platforms: Google for Education or Microsoft Office 365 Education. Schools can apply through The Key for School Leaders. The Key also provides feature comparison and case studies on how schools are making the most of these platforms.’

DS’s school has Microsoft 365 and could have Microsoft Teams for Education for free but steadfastly refuses to countenance the idea of even a couple of live lessons per week.

Many other local state secondaries are doing substantial amounts of live lessons.

I'm another teacher who had to buy their own laptop to enable me to provide narrated PowerPoints at a cost of £400. I have been sharing this with my daughter . I've just about coped without having year 11 and 13 in the mix. I can't think about having to return to teaching from home next academic year as I'm only just coping to make it to the end of this term.

@VashtaNerada - have you been teaching your classes in Lockdown?

Many of DS’s teachers have not been. In some cases 1 teacher sets the work for the whole year & then there is no feedback from the actual normal teachers. What on earth some of them are doing is a complete mystery to many parents!

Tutor2u (originally underwritten by Eton; possibly still I think) provide masses of A-level teaching material differentiated by exam board - they started as Economics specialists but have moved into a variety of other subjects. It's not really materials that's the issue - you get the odd student who can teach themselves but most need, well...teaching!