Remote learning question - professional question from a primary teacher

[RuleWithAWoodenFoot]

I need a bit of help here. My head has asked me to look at our remote learning stuff for this term. We have access to Teams, and the children 'know' how to use it, although we find that for children year 4 and younger it's not really an option. I'm specificially looking for stuff for year 3 and 4.

My big concern isn't the children who go off for the full isolation period when their bubble closes - we're all set for that, have done it three times, and it worked as well as we expected.

Children who are off for two or three days here and there waiting for test results. Children who are off on their own for the 10 days isolation period.

What are you doing for them?

The 'best' option is that they somehow join in with lessons in class, but that isn't going to happen with our community (deprived, EAL).

Second best - they have an 'in case of emergency' pack that goes home which contains generic stuff like year group spellings, some times tables activities, a couple of reading response activities etc.

If they are then going to be off for longer, we'd do more to provide work - probably linked to Oak National Academy or Talk for Writing.

Our class webpage has all our foundation subject lessons on it - recordings over powerpoints or notebooks + links to Bitesize or other useful stuff - so not worried about that too much.

What are you providing?

Have you looked into Seesaw?

When that happened last term I (as class teacher) loaded the same work, explanations and links to learning videos that the class were using onto Google Classroom each day. It took at least an extra hour per day, generally more.

We are not sending work for anyone at home through choice.

We have a generic set of activities per year group for the first two days. It's got two literacy lessons, two maths and a few foundation things. That keeps most of the ones waiting for test results busy, theoretically (though they don't always find it, and I'm not sure what we would do if they had already been off once). Then it's Seesaw after that. Used similarly to Google classroom as the poster above did.

I know a bit about seesaw, but it's another app format to get parents on board with (let alone kids).

It's the extra hour a day I'm trying to avoid!

Have made a list of generic maths/Eng activities to keep them busy for a couple of days. To sort out Monday.

I think it is the point of the guidance to avoid the generic busy-work, but it is nigh-on unsustainable to deliver in-class and remote concurrently.

We use Seesaw and my little people are fine with it (I teach first grade - age 6/7). I wouldn't put them on Teams...even as an adult, I find it clunky and annoying.
For children, who are out for short periods, we are meant to provide the option of joining the lessons via Zoom. That doesn't really work too well because our internet is a bit rubbish and we are out in the sticks. For longer absences, parents have access to materials on Google drive.
If we had to stay off for longer, I'd mostly switch them to Seesaw and Zoom. That's what I did in the summer term when we were closed for about 5 weeks, I think. It worked really well and I set it up for my entire school back then. We taught about 4 hours of lessons via Zoom every day and then added activities on Seesaw to link with the lessons, as well as videos and websites for foundation subjects. (I moved to a different school after the summer holidays.)

During the summer we did a maths, writing and foundation subject video every day, with everything set up to be done with a pencil and piece of paper. Children emailed work in for marking. It was fine - a more than full time job, but worked pretty well.

There is no way we can do it while being in the classroom. I really don't want parents seeing me teaching my awfully behaved class by joining live lessons.

Be interesting to see how many kids we get back. I'll have a proper play with seesaw tomorrow. I've got the app, just ignored it because school decision was Teams.

Well, all of the parents need to have signed a permission for the live lessons and the camera is pointing at the IWB, so they don't see the other kids. It's an option for them to join but it's usually quite boring for them. Would make more sense to just send a video. We are an independent school, though, so parental expectations are quite high. Equally, parental support in terms of online learning is quite high.

As a whole school, we have subscribed to seesaw (not just the free part of the app). Everything we plan (and I do mean everything!!) is saved as PDF slides and we upload straight to seesaw as we save...eg Monday's English/maths/Science/phonics/history...save as PDF, upload straight to seesaw! We don't 'allocate' anything to anyone at that point until we hear if they are off...but because we now are in the habit of automatically saving everything, as soon as we know someone is off, it's simply a matter of two minutes in the morning to log onto seesaw, find the 'Monday' folder and click 'assign' to that child. Job done 🤷‍♀️

Parents are very well trained in this now due to the many closures we've had this term 🤦‍♀️🤷‍♀️ Works really well, and every Friday before we leave school, my year group partner and I record a quick 'live' video to introduce the following week's work, which we upload ready and 'pin' to the top for that week, as a sort of 'hi year 2, sorry you're at home, we are missing you in school and hope to see you back in soon! This week in English we will be learning....' etc. It has worked really well for us so far.

@BumbleBeegu love the name, my DC adored that book in KS1.

Is there actually enough on your teaching slides for kids at home to be able to learn from them without any additional explanation @BumbleBeegu? There definitely isn't on mine. I have to add a load of explanation on mine, of find a pre-prepared video that does it for me.

Do you not have to also load up separate methods for them to respond/ practise (google docs/ google quizzes for us- not sure about other platforms)?

@reefedsail yes there is now 😂 We have changed how we plan, with this in mind. We used to plan on Smart Note Book 'just for us' (so minimal info on the slides, lots of visuals for the children). Now we plan straight into PowerPoint, and use the 'add notes' facility so when we save, we save a copy as thumbnail 'with notes' for parents as a PDF. It does add about 15 minutes extra or so I guess to each lesson when planning...which adds up of course over the course of the week...but we've just got used to it now 🤷‍♀️ And hopefully it won't be forever 🤦‍♀️🤦‍♀️

I do NOT fancy that!!

I've only got 16 children, so I'll just cross my fingers for not too many self-isolations!

16 children in my bubble, I should say.

@reefedsail lucky you 😂 (and fingers crossed!) We are a two form entry school, with a HUGE amount of 'siblings' across year groups too. Hardly a day has gone by since September when we have had every child in our classes. Our year 2 'bubble' has shut 3 times due to children testing positive 😱 I've had days when there have been 6 or more children out isolating. It's been an absolute nightmare. I'm permanently exhausted. The last week of term, our school only had two year groups actually in...and one of those (reception) were only back in for the last 3 days as they had been isolating the previous 2 weeks 🤦‍♀️

I'm so not looking forward to Monday 😢

We are 2 form entry too, but I run the satellite SEN provision. As a school, we went almost unscathed until the end- then it just went wild in the last couple of weeks. All out except one year group and my setting by then end.

I suspect it will be bad when we go back too.

We have a 2 week, printed, rolling pack, which is basically everything we've done in class the previous week, plus what's coming up in the next week. We are a 3 form entry school, with each teacher taking a core subject for planning, so when you plan and print you also print an extra copy and add some notes for the isolation pack. This pack is then kept by me, as YGL, and is photocopied and left by the office for collection when needed. It is separate to our whole bubble closure pack, which is more generic, and during a whole bubble closure we also deliver online learning via teams but the pack is for the (many) children who won't/can't access the online stuff. There is nothing provided online for those individuals isolating.

OK, this is the decision.

Going to send home a 'Don't open unless your class is isolating' pack on the first day back. These are ready to go - individualised anyway - and come half term won't be in line with curriculum etc anyway, so they may as well go home. If the whole class is isolating, then there are Teams lessons/teacher contact/feedback things organised already.

For individual children isolating for short periods:

Going to put up all the White Rose lessons and powerpoints with questions on every day. Only takes 5 mins, children only need pencil and paper.

Our whole class reading lessons go up every day already. Going to add a writing activity to each stage of the book.

Going to spend Monday recording science lesson vids for the term.
Other team members will record their planned subject lessons too.
We'll put those up once a week, so there will be one foundation subject every day.

That covers them - we'll call or whatever anyway. They can join in class story time and assemblies on Teams if they want/are able, and any child working below age expectation can be emailed separate stuff quite easily.

Any individual child isolating for the full 10 days:

As above, but with more contact time where possible. Ideally the class teacher will be able to email the 'proper' writing lesson each day too.

Issues:

I find recording over powerpoints really easy. Doesn't take me any longer than a straight forward talk through + upload time. My team colleagues find it harder/less straightforward. I don't want to add stressful shit to their workload, so will have a chat on Monday.