Learning Zone
The weekly learning can be found on the class pages and in more detail on DB primary, where you will also find links to teachers teaching videos, related worksheets and explanations. Mrs McDonald has also made helpful videos, which can be seen on the SEND page of the website.
Additional information for parents can be found on the parents Covid information page.
The section below is additional learning opportunities for you to work through at your convenience.
Remote Learning at our school
Thank you for your support and kindness during this second school lockdown. Hearing about your endeavours to juggle home life, work life and now home learning makes us all so proud and grateful that we have such supportive parents. Your innovative ways to make home learning work is a true inspiration to us all.
I wanted to write to you to give you more detail and clarity on our approach and why we are doing things the way we are. As ever, we are evolving as we go, so things may change in due course, but I will always keep you as best informed as I possibly can. Firstly, I’d like to state that our Remoting Learning offer has been planned in line with the Education Endowment Foundation, Ofsted and Government guidance.
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. The national curriculum is followed in line with our whole school curriculum aims and objectives, and in line with our embedded Christian values. To access the learning please check the class webpage and DB primary for further videos, advice and guidance.
Will my child be covering broadly the same curriculum as they would if they were in school?
We have the same high expectations for home learning as we do in school. Of course, in class we would reinforce the expectations and build upon the quality of work. However, when working at home it is really important to build your child’s self-esteem and confidence. So, developing a good home/work balance is crucial. We deliver the same curriculum remotely as we do if we were in school wherever possible and appropriate. However, as you would expect, it has been necessary to make some adaptations in some subjects.
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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 will take pupils broadly between three to five hours, depending on how they and you approach it. Please do remember that your child is unique, and the importance of structure and routine is key. Please just try and do the best you can.
Please establish a routine for home learning as suggested below:
Time | Activity | Suggested Ideas and times – KS2 |
Morning | Home learning | Maths, English, writing, Spellings. SPAG (2hrs) |
Lunch time |
| Help prepare lunch and clean up afterwards |
Exercise | Outside Play/Exercise activity (1hr daily ) | |
Afternoon | Home Learning | Follow Topic Tasks set (1hr) |
Home Learning | DB primary, Times Table Rock Stars, 10 ticks, Suggested websites from Class Pages relevant to each Year group. (30mins) Write a blog on DB Primary of your day. | |
Quiet time | Reading – 30mins (daily) Puzzles, Sudoku, word-searches | |
Evening | Free Time |
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Accessing remote education
How will my child access any online remote education you are providing?
The access to remote learning will be via our school website learning zone and class pages - the main platform is DB primary for KS1 & 2 and tapestry for EYFS.
Pupils will also use workbooks and/or printed worksheets. Ensuring the elements of effective teaching are present – for example clear explanations, scaffolding and feedback – is more important than how or when they are provided. There is no clear difference between teaching in real time (“synchronous teaching”) and alternatives (“asynchronous teaching”). For example, teachers might explain a new idea in a pre-recorded video. What matters most is whether the explanation builds clearly on pupils’ prior learning or how pupils’ understanding is subsequently assessed.
Should we be having live lessons?
One of the debates currently become spoken about in many places is whether or not primary school should have live learning. I thought it would be helpful to provide a comment from Ofsted’s recent report on Remote Education
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‘Live lessons aren’t always best
Some think that a live lesson is the ‘gold standard’ of remote education. This isn’t necessarily the case. Live lessons have a lot of advantages. They can make curriculum alignment easier, and can keep pupils’ attention, not least as the teacher has more control over the learning environment. But live lessons are not always more effective than asynchronous approaches. Different approaches to remote education suit different types of content and pupils.
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We are aiming to provide more videos from our teachers, which means that children are able to access the learning at a time convenient for them and their families, but still have content from their teacher. It also means that they can complete the work at their own pace. We are very conscious that when you have a range of abilities within a class, trying to teach everyone at the same pace remotely is incredibly challenging and can often be disheartening for both those who want to go faster and those who want to go slower. This would result in children becoming disengaged and may well impact their mental health. We cannot allow this to happen. Our videos can be paused and reviewed several times if children need to watch again. Feedback is given via the blog and email system on DB primary.
We have carefully weighed up our remote learning offer, and we took a lot of feedback from parents over the first lockdown to adjust this. Our blend of video teaching and written instructions provides equal access to all our pupils and we find that the blend of personal videos from the teachers, coupled with carefully chosen activities works for most of our families.
If my child does not have digital or online access at home, how will you support them to access remote education?
Our Remote learning is not a digital education. A lot of the tasks set require worksheets or practical materials, the work is set online and some of it completed on line but not all. We do not recommend a child sits at a device for prolonged periods.
We recognise that some pupils may not have suitable online access at home. We take the following approaches to support those pupils to access remote education:
In the first instance please contact the school office to inform them of your difficulties with access.
teachers. |
How will my child be taught remotely?
We use a combination of the following approaches to teach pupils remotely:
Some examples of remote teaching approaches:
clips or sequences
schools full opening guidance. |
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?
Pupil well-being is at the centre of all learning. Happy pupils mean happy learners – it’s about support and praise.
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How will you check whether my child is engaging with their work and how will I be informed if there are concerns?
DB primary logs how often your child is online and the class teachers will check this frequently. Teachers will also monitor pupil emails and blogs to check on work. If a child is not engaging an adult will call home to try and help with pupil engagement. Please ensure you upload completed work onto either Tapestry or DB primary as asked to by teachers. |
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 children. 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:
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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:
In this section, please set out briefly:
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How do I make home leaning work?
- Set up a timetable that works for you, include the children in this progress
- Ensure you have breaks, reward time and relaxing time included in the timetable.
- Offer lots of support and praise and complete the tasks you can.
- Plan in Golden Time. Pupils need an incentive and reward for all of their efforts.
- Plan social time, call/facetime a friend, family member or neighbour (keeping social connections helps everyone during lockdown).
- Support, praise, love and kindness for everyone.
Keep Safe
Mrs Bhabra
We do not offer live lessons, for the following reasons:
- There is a safeguarding issue with streaming lessons from school. Some children have legitimate safeguarding reasons why their images should not be broadcast.
- Not all parents want or will agree to have their child’s image or voice streamed to other families’ homes.
- Some of the above points may be mitigated by having microphones or cameras turned off, however this would place those children at a disadvantage.
- Many families in our school have several children, in different year groups and often at different schools. Parents then have to choose which child they support in the live learning. This significantly disadvantages families with siblings.
- Some families need to control their own schedule, so the children would not be able to access live lessons during school time.
- For most children, lessons are broken down into small chunks of learning. The teacher would never talk for a full 50 minute lesson, and input is generally 15 minutes maximum as this is the longest time children of this age can concentrate. It would be difficult to keep children of all abilities engaged.
Our pre recorded videos from the teachers means that children are able to access the learning at a time convenient for them and their families, but still have content from teachers from their own school. Videos can be paused and reviewed several times if children need to watch again. Feedback is given via the blog and email system on DB primary.
We have carefully weighed up our remote learning offer, and we took a lot of feedback from parents over the first lockdown to adjust this. Our blend of video teaching and written instructions provides equal access to all our pupils and we find that the blend of personal videos from the teachers, coupled with carefully chosen activities works for most of our families.
We have put together the best blend that we can in very difficult circumstances. If you feel that your child requires something different, there are a wealth of platforms providing additional online lessons please do review all the additional resources placed on the home learning page – the Oak National Academy is free and is designed to work alongside the national curriculum.
The model has been carefully thought out to respond to the needs of our specific pupils, pace of learning and timing of access as well as different family routines.
Please be reminded that live lessons do not mean, less parental support.
Your feedback on Remote learning. (FEB 2021)
What’s working well (a summary of your comments)
Teachers Videos, asynchronous (pre recorded videos) 18
Routine/timetable 7
Activities and work load 11
General all well comments 24
General, not going well 4
Games and activities on DB primary 8
What could be better ( a summary of your comments)
Less printing 12
Work easier to access 17
No improvement needed 5
Live lessons 9
More work 14
More reading help/support 4
Children back to school 4
Can’t answer/not sure 4
Uploading work 3
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Spark empowers families to make sustainable changes towards a healthier lifestyle. Spark sessions are held in a range of locations across Bucks and are held during early evening and weekends.
* If you are a Buckinghamshire resident, are registered with a Bucks GP or go to school in Bucks, you could be eligible for our FREE Spark programme.
Whilst Sparks covers 7-13 year olds, support for teens 14 years plus is available through Live Well Stay Well: www.livewellstaywellbucks.co.uk
Feelgood Fifteen with Sing Up
Do you fancy a little bit of singing to start your day? Singing is great way to help you feel good. Every Tuesday morning at 9am, Sing Up will bring you their #Feelgood Fifteen singing session on their website or Youtube chanel. Give it a go, see how it makes you feel!