Remote and Blended Learning Updates

What will we keep you updated on?

Here we will share any information regarding changes to our remote / blended learning plan as well as share some information about how our chosen strategies are developing so far.

We will share some of the children's work so that everyone can see how well our plan is working in practice.

January 2021

January remote learning has got off to a great start with over 95% of our pupils posting daily updates about their home learning on Seesaw.

The staff have been working very hard to ensure that we are providing every child with a valuable learning experience and we are taking on board feedback shared with us via email to make tweaks to our approach. We have listened to questions around ‘live lessons’ and further information about our response to this can will be sent out to parents very soon. 

Seesaw is enabling us to send feedback and to communicate with children and parents with a much greater frequency than we were able to during the Summer 2020 closure period. We would like to share with you some of the successes of the past week and to offer feedback on some of the questions that have been raised by parents during the course of the past week.

Successes

We have seen over 4,200 posts uploaded to Seesaw in the 7 days since the start of term and the graphs below evidence that the majority of our children are engaging with home learning through Seesaw since we began remote learning on 6th January. We are overjoyed with this response as it shows that the work we carried out in the autumn term to teach children how to use the strategies within our remote learning plan were appropriately and well chosen to suit the children of Booker Hill. The results also are testament to the complete commitment of all of our parents in supporting the children with their remote learning.

Feedback from Parents

Here are just some of the positive comments we have received in response to our January Home Learning approach.

• Just wanted to say thank you for all the work you set today it has kept my child busy for most of the day. She really enjoyed doing the topic work most.

• I can imagine it’s really hard for all the teachers as it’s very different from the way you would normally teach. But we really do appreciate all the time and effort you have put in to producing all the different activities.

• Thanks for the home learning plan. It makes it more clear with what you expect my child to be learning each day and she is looking forward to another day of home schooling tomorrow

• Just to let you know that my child is loving the Oak Academy classes

• Thank you so much! Really appreciate you sending out the full week of work😊 and for your comments on my child’s work.

• Lovely to see some teachers faces on Seesaw, very engaging for my child. Thank you

• Firstly I would like to thank you for all the work you have done to set up the new home learning and for enabling it to be accessed via Seesaw - from my point of view, this is so much better than in the first lockdown and is much more structured. Being able to actually get feedback on the work submitted is also extremely helpful both for my child and for myself. 

• My child and I would like to say thank you for you support with us returning to homeschooling.

• I’m sure you can imagine it’s not easy to have a very active toddler, working from home and trying to teach as well as do all the general home jobs. Knowing that we had support on the end of an email is something that we can’t thank you enough for. Thank you.

• Thank you for your positive feedback and encouragement

• Please pass on my thanks to all the staff that have worked especially hard this week to get home school up and running again. I can see the hard work that teachers and senior leaders have put in to get the plans out so quickly.

• As working parents, we now also have to work around the clock to keep our business going. However we are glad for now that school staff and children can work safely in these difficult times.

• Very impressed with the level of support, work and care from the teacher for the class today; everything is so much more prepared this time - thank you to you all for getting it all up and running!

• Can’t thank the teachers enough for their support today!

• Amazing work by the teachers. Thank you so much for supporting and encouraging       

• Thank you to the staff for supporting keyworker children in school and the rest on line

• Absolutely amazing work by the teachers. Your encouragement and on time feedback motivates children. Thank you.

  Agreed!

Curriculum

Children have been set tasks and lessons based on the curriculum that is appropriate to their year group and term. We have seen some fantastic contributions and teachers are working hard to provide support for children via Seesaw. Our Teaching Assistants are also working hard to set intervention work that is in line with additional support that would have been provided in school. Every member of staff is involved and work continues to be set by specialist teachers for Early Reading, Guided Reading, French and PE in order to ensure that our excellent provision is not reduced by the impact of not being in school.

Here are just a few of examples of our work across the Booker Hill curriculum.

The above work clearly shows that children at Booker Hill are all being provided with lessons in line with their Spring term topics and that the lessons show a broad and balanced curriculum.

Equal Opportunities

Evaluation and analysis of our remote learning provision so far evidences that we have selected resources that enable our teaching staff to provide all children with access to a quality remote education. Where appropriate, some children with additional needs are being supported through online interventions with a few pupils also receiving printed materials; however, this is only being offered to children with significant need as we are unable with our current staffing levels and the national picture in terms of the pandemic’s increase within the local community to offer printed packs for significant numbers of children. We appreciate that home learning is challenging for parents, carers and the children themselves and we remain committed to supporting everyone within our community as best we can.

In Summary

Feedback from children and parents has been very positive in response to our current provision; we plan to continue our remote learning approach using Seesaw and using Youtube, Oak Academy and other prerecorded content for the delivery of lessons. Nevertheless, we are continuously evaluating the effectiveness of what we are providing and are currently looking into ways to support families with limited access to technology. As always, we remain open to further suggestions and feedback, and teachers are always happy to receive emails from parents and carers and to offer support and advice to support all children. 

When We Launched Seesaw for Home Learning - Autumn 2020

Throughout the Autumn term 2020, staff spent time teaching children how to use Seesaw as part of their homework provision. This ensured that all children were able to access the platform in the event of any individual, bubble or wider school closure.

the children thoroughly enjoyed using Seesaw to share both their home learning and work that they had been doing in school with their parents and Seesaw journals proved to be a fantastic way of sharing the children's work with parents in the absence of face-to-face parent consultation meetings.

Teachers helped the children to upload work that they had been doing in lessons in school to share with their parents. In addition, children used Seesaw to share their homework with their teachers. Please see below to see a sample of the work uploaded to Seesaw throughout the Autumn term.