What is classed as remote learning now?

[newyeary]

I'm just getting my head ready for inevitable school closures and wondering what the current guidelines are for primary?

Is it remote learning? What does that actually mean? Does it mean schools should provide online taught lessons? Or uploading worksheets for parents to complete? Are there minimum standards of what we should expect this time around?

Last lockdown there were a few worksheets put on the school website each week but nothing more. I'm hoping for more but not sure how feasible it is and we've not heard anything about remote learning plans if required etc. Thanks.

As I see it, a day looks like this:

A 'register' session on Teams from 8.30 - 9.30 - children 'check in' even if just for 2 mins to have a chat about the day's expectations. 2 turn up, but you can't leave the computer.

Preparing powerpoints or notebooks for tomorrow's lesson videos - much more difficult than just standing in front of a whiteboard. Recoring the lessons. That's at least lunch time - in lockdown it took me around 3 hours per maths lesson to get the lesson vid, the answer vid done and uploaded to two different platforms. So now I've got maths, English and a topic lesson each day at least. Not sure how that will work exactly.

From 12 - 3.30 do 5 x feedback/chats/lessons with 6 kids at a time on Teams. Again, maybe 1 or 2 turn up to each session.

3.30 - 5pm marking stuff that has been emailed in/answering stuff from parents, making phone calls to children who haven't shown up for the day/2 days/a week.

5 - 7pm bedtime for my own child, or teach my own child (ha!)

7pm - 10pm - story videos, finish the stuff from the day (ie making more goddamn videos), something doesn't record correctly, do some swearing and crying, wish you had your visualiser. Hash together a visualiser out of a mobile phone, some boxes and two rulers....

I've spent £40 on an XP Pen (not reimbursed by the school) and £15 on a clamp for my mobile phone + a whiteboard to put under it, 'just in case' this all happens. I've been lucky and not had an isolation period yet.

[quote Scarby9]@Dontlickthetrolley Did your Y4 and Y5 DCs manage all the logging on and off and submitting work independently?[/quote]
No! Y4 I ended up being the unofficial learning partner, Y5 was better but I had to keep reminding to log back in at the relevant times (although I did manage to do some work when they were off)

Ours isn’t on our website as it isn’t needed at the moment (And my part isn’t planned yet - it’s on tomorrow’s job list) so that doesn’t necessarily mean anything. Also schools have 24 hours to get it all sorted (afaik) so there may not be anything for day 1 anyway. As pp have said there are requirements that have been laid out by the DfE so there will be much better provision than last year.

We had 2 weeks of isolation last term and for the first week sent out paper copies of everything and made videos daily for maths and English. Week 2 was much less paper and the videos were longer for Maths as the children could watch them and complete the work as they watched the videos. It worked well for lots of children. We also did zoom calls every other day with half the class at a time so they could check in with us and ask any questions. If it happens again we will be using an online platform though as it wasn’t easy to keep track of who was engaging with the work.

My year 5 will be muddling through on his own (1 key worker out of the home, and 1 wfh in a demanding role that can’t just be dipped in and out of during office hours).

It’s a bugger. Don’t think there’s an answer really. Hoping the work will be easier for him to do without a parent sitting next to him.

[quote newyeary]@MrsHamlet what about the children who don't have TAs? DS doesn't have a 1:1. There are some in the school but they are attached to particular children so I assume they would be working with those children, not all the SEN and KW children?[/quote]
@newyeary
Luckily (not, but you know what I mean!) the only students with SEN that I teach have EHCP and 1:1 so I can only really speak for them. Last time, they were in the SEN base in year group bubbles so half of y10 would be in English and the other half in maths. My student who was in (the other stayed at home) had his TA in the room all day and whilst she was there for him, she was available to anyone else in the room.
Our SENCO is amazing - I know that if a parent in your position asked for help, she'd do whatever she could.

It varies so much by age, by school and by subject.

But all schools have to provide meaningful learning. The curriculum won't be suspended (at least, I don't think it will!)

At my school it's all live lessons via MS Teams. We don't have to do the whole lesson live but we have to at least greet the children, introduce the lesson/point them to the materials and do a plenary at the end.

Some schools aren't keen on live lessons. Some schools won't let teachers or students use the camera. I find I have to use the camera as I teach Drama and Dance so it's very difficult to manage without. I don't know if there are exceptions for those subjects in schools which generally say 'no cameras' or not. I don't force the children to turn their cameras on but ask them to if they are comfortable. And of course I need mine on.

My lessons require a lot of video submissions via Teams, One Drive or WeTransfer and the musical stuff needs them to listen to my accompaniment on one device and record themselves on another which can be difficult for some children so none of the tasks are compulsory, just 'please do this if you are able to'. With Maths and English etc obviously the tasks need to be compulsory but they're usually also less difficult to submit.

For a few specific examples of online learning for different stages (these are all from the Spring lockdown):

My 6 year old daughter:
9 - 9:45am - English on Teams
10:30 - 11:15am - Maths on Teams
2 - 3pm - 'Topic' project work from online booklet with teacher available on Teams if needed.
3 - 3:30pm - Storytime on Teams (optional)

My 17 year old daughter:
8:40 - Registration
9:00 - Period 1 live on Zoom
10:00 - Period 2 live on Teams
11:30 - Period 3 live on Teams
1:15 - Period 4 live on Zoom
2:15 - independent study/rehearsal

My own day (and my 13 year old's who I was teaching last year):
8:30 - Registration
8:45 - Chapel or Assembly
9:00-9:50 - Lesson 1 Live on Teams
10:00 - 10:50 - Lesson 2 Live on Teams
11:30 - 12:20 - Lesson 3 Live on Teams
1:10 - 2:00 - Lesson 4 Live on Teams
2:10 - 3:00 - Lesson 5 Live on Teams
3:30 - 4:15 - Lesson 6 Live on Teams
4:30 onwards - Clubs and Enrichment Activities (optional)
For Years 3,4 and 5 some of their lessons were optional. Years 6,7 and 8 were expected to attend them all unless parents emailed and withdrew them from some lessons.

We didn't set homework on top on the online curriculum although there were optional 'challenge' tasks based around outdoor learning and creative curriculum.

Some of these responses look like amazing provision for children who can manage it and makes me wonder why all we got was a few worksheets on the school website every week.

It makes me really anxious for the possible closures as DS won't cope with this level of online learning and he'll get even further behind. But he can't cope with worksheets at home either. So he's going to get behind either way if schools close.

newyeary The children we have who didn't cope with it for a specific reason were invited into school as vulnerable children (we called them 'educationally vulnerable' - I suspect it was a bit of a stretch! But we had the space and the staffing). It was still the same work but easier to do around other children with TA support. Might be an option for you depending on the school's capacity?

In my opinion, my school did too much online. Not for us but for a lot of the children. But it was parental demand and we were asking them to pay about 80% of school fees still. If too many pulled out, the school would have folded and we'd have lost our jobs. So we were forced to go against many children's best interests in a way which didn't feel good.