Remote Teaching and Study
Remote education provision at KGGS: information for parents
This information is intended to provide clarity and transparency to pupils and parents or carers about what to expect from remote education where national or local restrictions require entire cohorts (or bubbles) to remain at home.
For details of what to expect where individual pupils are self-isolating, please see the final section of this document.
The remote curriculum: what is taught to pupils at home
A pupil’s first day or two of being educated remotely might look different from our standard approach, while we take all necessary actions to prepare for a longer period of remote teaching.
What should my child expect from immediate remote education in the first day or two of pupils being sent home?
| The normal timetable of lessons will continue to be offered, with each day starting with a tutor period followed by a mixture of live lessons, pre-recorded lessons and independent work. |
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 wherever possible and appropriate. However, we have needed to make some adaptations in some subjects to allow for students to complete work remotely. For example, in design technology the curriculum will be adapted as a result of the difficulties of completing practical work at home and possibly unsupervised. In music it will not always be possible to play an instrument as when in school and therefore the curriculum will be amended to take account of this. In P.E. students working at home may, on occasion, be encouraged, to engage in some physical activity away from the computer screen and feedback to their teacher, subsequently, about how this has been for them. These are just some examples of where the curriculum may be adapted to take into account of the students working remotely from home. |
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 number of hours each day:
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Key Stage 3 and 4
Key Stage 5
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5+ hours per day An hour a day for each timetabled lesson on that day |
Accessing remote education
How will my child access any online remote education you are providing?
| All lessons will be accessed via Microsoft Teams, via existing Teams groups for each of the students’ subjects - with resources being uploaded to files within this package. Other subject-specific websites or software packages will also be used; but these will be clearly signposted to students in their Teams groups. |
If my child does not have digital or online access at home, how will you support them to access remote education?
We recognise that pupils may not have suitable online access at home. We take the following approaches to support those pupils to access remote education:
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In the first instance, any student who doesn’t have access to suitable online access at home should contact Assistant Head, Ms Anderson, at staffzAnderson@kggs.org
KGGS may be able to help in a variety of ways including:
If this is not possible, then parents should liaise with Ms Anderson and the student will be offered a place in school each day to allow internet access.
Students will usually be asked to submit work to their teachers via Microsoft Teams, and be directed to either in class notes, or assignments. Occasionally, they will be asked to email it to their teachers. If your daughter is unsure how to submit work, she should contact the relevant subject teacher for clarification.
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How will my child be taught remotely?
We use a combination of the following approaches to teach pupils remotely.
A variety of different teaching approaches will be used when delivering remote learning including:
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Engagement and feedback
What are your expectations for my child’s engagement and the support that we as parents and carers should provide at home?
| We expect each student to be available online at 8.40am each day to check in with their tutor. They will then follow their normal timetable of lessons/breaks. All students are expected to use Microsoft Teams to access each of their lessons promptly. The teacher will ensure all students are clear about the work and tasks set; and when there will be interactive activities, live teacher-led delivery, or when they need to complete a task independently. Staff will then be available to help the students throughout the whole lesson. And students can request help by posting a question in the Teams POSTS chat function. |
How will you check whether my child is engaging with their work and how will I be informed if there are concerns?
| Any student not attending tutor time will be flagged and then contacted to ensure there aren’t any issues. In each lesson throughout the day, teachers will complete a register check and follow up with any students who are not present. If non-attendance online continues, both heads of year and heads of faculty will be made aware and parents contacted. |
How will you assess my child’s work and progress?
Feedback can take many forms and may not always mean extensive written comments for individual learners. For example, whole-class feedback or quizzes marked automatically via digital platforms are also valid and effective methods, amongst many others. Our approach to feeding back on pupil work is as follows:
| During lessons, teachers will monitor students’ understanding carefully in a variety of ways, using the various functions in Microsoft Teams which allow learners to answer questions, make contributions, and post requests for help. If a teacher becomes concerned that a student is not engaging with their learning, or is struggling with the work, they will follow this up with the student, and, if this continues, the student will then be highlighted and their parents or carers contacted. In addition to these assessment-for-learning strategies employed by teachers in lessons, which allow teachers to be sure all members of their classes are making progress, termly assignments will be set in each subject, in accordance with our September 2020 Marking and Feedback Protocol. In all key stages, students can expect to receive individualised, formative comments, which highlight their strengths and areas for development, in all of their subjects, at least once each short term. This feedback will take different forms, depending on the curricular content of each subject, including: formative comments added electronically to a Microsoft Form or Quiz used to set the termly assignment; formative comments on a document submitted as an assignment; comments alongside assessment criteria highlighted on a Subject Feedback Form; or formative comments in an email. |
Additional support for pupils with particular needs
How will you work with me to help my child who needs additional support from adults at home to access remote education?
We recognise that some pupils, for example some pupils with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND), may not be able to access remote education without support from adults at home. We acknowledge the difficulties this may place on families, and we will work with parents and carers to support those pupils in the following ways:
| If your daughter has specific needs and is struggling to access the remote learning please do contact the subject teacher and/or our SENCO Mr Tarver. StaffSTarver@kggs.org |
Remote education for self-isolating pupils
Where individual pupils need to self-isolate but the majority of their peer group remains in school, how remote education is provided will likely differ from the approach for whole groups. This is due to the challenges of teaching pupils both at home and in school.
If my child is not in school because they are self-isolating, how will their remote education differ from the approaches described above?
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In the situation whereby some students are in physical lessons in school and some at home, students at home will be able to access their lessons occurring in school using their existing Microsoft Teams groups for each of their subjects. Teachers will use either cameras in classrooms, visualisers, sound functions, or screen-sharing functions in Teams, to allow learners at home to follow the lesson as much as is workably possible, whilst still teaching the students in the physical classroom.
Students should follow their normal timetable – with lesson start times they are used to for 2020-2021. |
