Remote learning at our school - a thread.

Have found reading about other schools’ approaches really helpful in continuing to refine our offer, so thought I would share an overview of what we’re doing currently. Questions and feedback welcomed.
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*Key principles*

Remote education at CMA is underpinned by the following principles-
•Curriculum continuity
•High-quality learning materials
•Ongoing, purposeful assessment&feedback

These are overcommunicated so that all stakeholders have clarity about what we do & why /2

*In practice*

Our scholars follow their normal timetable each day. This maintains a strong sense of routine and, more importantly, ensures that neither depth nor breadth is compromised, as the ‘normal’ curriculum continues to be taught. /3

We did press pause on the introduction of new content in the first week of term, focusing instead on retrieval and consolidation to ensure that we had the necessary support structures in place for our scholars and their families before moving on to brand new topics. /4

Focusing on content scholars already had a secure understanding of enabled them to experience success early on: crucial for motivation purposes.

Everything is shared on @Showmyhomework (our usual platform, for familiarity) scholars work through their ‘To do’ list of lessons. /5

Each lesson is in the form of a pre-recorded video, incorporating all the elements of effective teaching we enact face to face: purposefully planned retrieval practice, carefully crafted explanations, /6

high quality modelling (lots of our teachers have opted to take visualisers home with them), pause point tasks to allow scholars to practise using their newly acquired knowledge, lots of green pen work to allow scholars to review and refine their work. /7

Teachers are active on SatchelOne, according to their normal timetable, to facilitate real-time interaction with scholars as the asynchronous lessons are being taught. This means they are on hand to respond instantly to questions, /8

& can gather data on how learning has ‘landed’ at the point of delivery. This might be through a strategically planted hinge question or discussion point partway through the lesson video, enabling appraisal of submitted responses so that instant support can be provided. /9

At least one, high-leverage data-gathering opportunity is planned into each lesson (these vary from subject to subject, but range from whole-class discussion board tasks, to extended written pieces, to quizzes). /10

Teachers use this information to feed forward into subsequent lessons (allowing them to address misconceptions promptly), and provide whole-class feedback at least weekly. /11

*Support for scholars*

We started the term with a video assembly reminding scholars of our remote learning expectations & the ‘why’ underpinning these, as well as providing practical tips. (So far, we’ve shared a further 3assemblies focused on staying safe & healthy at home)/12

As well as being on hand to respond instantly during lessons, teachers can use @Showmyhomework ‘Insights’ tool to keep a tabs on who has viewed tasks. We send positive reminders or ‘nudges’ if scholars are late to view a lesson, or if a piece of work is not submitted on time. /13

Scholars receive a weekly phone call from either their form tutor, inclusion key worker or member of the pastoral team. The online ‘Gradebook’ on SatchelOne gives a breakdown of all tasks set in the previous week, which have been submitted and which are outstanding, /14

allowing tutors to have an informed conversation with both parent&scholar about engagement & ascertain what further support is needed. Tutors keep a record of their correspondence centrally, on an easy to manoeuvre spreadsheet (already improved thanks to staff feedback) /15

, indicating where a referral to the pastoral care team is needed. PCT review this daily.

To ensure our scholars have everything they need to access the curriculum fully, we prepared resource packs containing curriculum knowl. booklets, Eng texts, high res photos (for art) /16

and so on. Scholars came in to collect these (safely, by appointment), and also had access to a stationery stall to replenish any depleted stock. Our admin team worked exceptionally hard to pull all of this together and we are incredibly grateful to them for their efforts. /17

@MichaelaRueben & the inclusion team have worked hard to ensure that interventions can continue remotely. Anyone struggling to engage with remote learning is invited to attend our in-school provision.

Peri lessons continue via Teams, as will tutor sessions from this week.

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*Support for parents*

We ran 2 parent info events, outlining remote learning plans & support (inclusion & pastoral) underpinning these. We ended with Q+A & this was a great opportunity for us to receive feedback on what parents feel is going well, & what we could do better. /19

*Support for staff*

The non-teaching day on 4th January was used by staff to prepare remote lessons, with a sharp focus on optimising opportunities for feedback and assessment. The day started with a pre-recorded professional learning session /20

focused on the ‘Critique’ strand of our T+L framework in the context of remote learning. Staff viewed this in departments (remotely), collaborating to devise concrete action steps that would further improve their subject’s remote learning offer. /21

Every teacher continues to have an instructional coaching session fortnightly (weekly for NQTs), focusing now on how we can keep honing our remote teaching (the quality of our exposition, feedback, etc.) /22

I send a weekly bulletin out on a Friday, based on feedback gathered (from staff, scholars, parents) over the course of the week, with any arising actions clearly highlighted (in most cases, very minor tweaks i.e. to how we label tasks for scholars’ ease of navigation). /23

In 1:1s, CLs and senior leaders discuss submission rates for the previous week, outlining helpful actions as to how to continue to aim for 100%.

Next week, CLs meet to share nuggets of brilliance from their departments so that, collectively, we can keep getting better./24

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