Introduction
From DFE: Restricting attendance during the national lockdown: schools Guidance for all schools in England, January 2021, the national expectations for remote learning are summarised as follows:
The amount of remote education provided should be, as a minimum:
‘In developing their remote education, we expect schools to:
When teaching pupils remotely, we expect schools to:
We expect our schools, subject leaders and individual teachers to know and be mindful of these expectations when considering the preparation of resources for remote learning. We will base our monitoring and evaluation on the DFE expectations and our own framework for successful remote learning
Curriculum: wherever possible, the ‘normal’ planned curriculum is taught and delivered so that students’ gaps in learning are minimised. This should be ambitious and sequenced so that students learning is appropriately challenging and has continuity to promote progress.
Learning platform: each school uses a singular learning platform as the main delivery of learning (HHS - FROG, KC1 - Microsoft Teams, TDMS - Google Classroom). Students should be familiar with how to access all necessary elements of the platform and know how to seek help and support with difficulties.
Barriers to learning: each school has completed an audit of student access to the necessary technology and aims to provide from resources, where possible, so that students can access the online lessons set. All students will have printed resources delivered to supplement the online learning provided.
Engagement trackers: staff monitor the daily submission of assignments and feedback on student engagement. Each school will develop systems for challenging and overcoming non-engagement in partnership with parents/carers.
Remote Learning Leader: a senior leader is identified in each school who is responsible for the quality and delivery of the remote learning provided, as well as facilitating the sharing of best practice through appropriate CPD. The leaders are:
Published information: there are dedicated pages on each website that provide the information required by the DfE and further advice and guidance on remote learning at the school. See:
We expect all of our schools, subject areas and teachers to provide a lesson-by-lesson approach to remote learning; each timetabled lesson (that is not a live lesson) should have a corresponding asynchronous recorded PowerPoint or instructional video with supporting activities to practise and demonstrate new learning, as well as a mechanism for providing timely and frequent feedback from previous lessons. All of these resources should be uploaded to the relevant learning platform in good time for students to access on the relevant timetabled day and at the relevant timetabled time.
In years 12 and 13 (across the full timetable) and for some of the lessons in other years (details organised locally in each school), these lessons will be ‘live lessons’ where the teacher will host the lesson that subsequently may follow the same pattern as outlined above or, alternatively have a specific purpose such as assessment/feedback.
In the classroom, we can direct a pupil’s wavering attention, we can pose questions with ease and purpose, we can judge how work is going and where we need to change the pace. A virtual classroom is a very poor proxy for this space. That isn’t to say that I think there is no place for live remote interaction. I have found that live sessions are really useful for keeping pupils motivated, for keeping in touch and for giving feedback on previous work. They can work really well with a smaller group of pupils for a short time, investigating a particular question.
- Mark Enser, TES, January 2021
Live online lessons cannot replicate the normal classroom and we shouldn’t expect that they can, however they do allow students an opportunity to interact with the teacher and each other and to ask and be asked questions.
We do not expect or wish for teachers to be ‘talking’ for the entire duration of a live lesson. A brief welcome, a mid-point check-in to discuss any issues and a plenary session to summarise progress may suffice in order to provide students with the necessary support to complete the independent tasks set.
Research suggests live lessons are best for feedback, assessment, dialogue and interaction with students.
Live ‘tutor-time’
All schools will deliver a live ‘tutor time’; the primary purpose of these short daily sessions is to improve engagement with the work set with a structured start to the day. Tutors will meet students each morning - so that staff can ensuring readiness for learning and check welfare - as well as facilitating some contact with peers and the wider school community through a weekly programme of activities to enhance motivation.
Our brains don’t learn differently using remote education, so everything we know about cognitive science and learning still applies. We don’t have to make huge changes to the way we teach. There are of course some things that need more careful consideration when teaching remotely. For example, when using recorded lessons, clarity of explanations becomes even more important as we can’t as easily correct misunderstandings or misconceptions. As it’s harder for pupils to concentrate when being taught remotely, it’s often a good idea to divide content into smaller chunks. Short presentations or modelling of new content can be followed by exercises or retrieval practice.
- Daniel Muijs, What’s working well in remote education, OFSTED, January 2021
The basics of good teaching do not change, however the challenges for good learning to occur remotely require an additional attention to detail in the execution of planning; we will not be able to rely on picking up quickly that students are ‘stuck’, so we have to endeavour to mitigate for this in our resources and support processes. All lessons will require a detailed and clear set of accompanying instructions. The key aspects to include are:
It is important for teachers to stay in regular contact with pupils. If necessary, they can even do this by using technology to automate communication. Some teachers have set up automated check-in emails to pupils to identify where they are with set tasks. This also gives a perception that teachers are ‘watching’ while pupils are learning remotely
- Daniel Muijs, What’s working well in remote education, OFSTED, January 2021
Getting students motivated to complete the work set is the number one concern for teachers and parents/carers. Teachers can consider a number of strategies to promote engagement in their groups:
Schools should endeavour to provide further opportunities for peer and/or staff interactions for students. These might include:
Schools should communicate regularly with parents/carers and students through a weekly remote learning bulletin and share the successes in learning as well as providing updates on provision and appropriate guidance for parents/carers and students to ensure success in remote learning.
All schools will prioritise the welfare and safety of every student by using all means necessary to ‘check-in’ with every student and family. Leaders should ensure that there are local systems to ensure this is rigorous. All staff should pay attention to the specific guidance in the additional policy documents in each school in relation to safeguarding.
Vulnerable learners should be invited into school to complete their remote learning with support. Those who do not attend should have enhanced procedures for check-in from key staff.
Some SEND students will also require enhanced support in ensuring remote learning arrangements are clear, accessible and that they can complete and submit work, with the support of school staff as is required.
We do not believe it is healthy/sustainable for staff or students to have long periods of uninterrupted screen time every day and, therefore, we do not support a full timetable of live lessons for most students.
Live interactions (live lessons, live tutor time) all require a clear and shared approach to ensure that staff and students can participate safely, yet still ensure these events have value. The following are MAT wide agreed principles: