During the period of national lockdown when school is closed to the majority of pupils and when classes and individual children are required to isolate, our school has developed a Remote Education package to ensure our children continue to receive high quality learning provision.

In developing our approach, we have ensured we have fully met DfE requirements. However, more importantly, we have ensured our approach meets the needs of our children and have taken research from the Education Endowment Foundation (EEF) to support and develop our thinking.

When implementing strategies to support pupils’ remote learning, or supporting parents to do this they are a number of key factors we have considered:

• Recognising the importance of connection. When a child is isolated at home, it is so important that we strive to maintain connection with the school, the teacher and their peers.
• Ensuring daily communication with the class teacher is maintained.
• Understanding peer interactions provide motivation and improve learning outcomes.
• Ensuring access to technology is key, especially for disadvantaged pupils.
• Supporting pupils to work independently can improve learning outcomes.
• Recognising different approaches to remote learning suit different types of content and pupils.
• Recognising pupil well-being is just as important as their academic progress, particularly when they are isolated at home.
• Providing support for parents and families and recognising the challenges of home schooling.

In planning our approach to Remote Education we have adopted a staged approach:

1. Individual child self-isolating
2. Bubble closure/year group
3. Whole school closure