Remote Education Provision

This page is intended to provide clarity and transparency to pupils and parents or carers about what to expect from remote education where national or local restrictions require entire cohorts (or bubbles) to remain at home.

For details of what to expect where individual pupils are self-isolating, please see the final section of this page.

Routines that prepare for remote education

While the school is open, students should ensure that they know how to access Google Classroom for their year group and for each of their lessons.

Students should ensure that they take their Chromebook home every night to ensure that they are prepared for remote access should it be required.

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.

What should my child expect from immediate remote education in the first day or two of pupils being sent home?

While the school prepares for remote education, students may access the independent learning for their year group at the link below.

Independent Learning Plans for StudentsStudents should check their Year Group and Individual Google Classroom pages regularly for updates. We will endeavour to start our full remote education within a day so it is important that students receive their instructions for this by accessing Google Classroom and their email. 

Following the first few days of remote education, will my child be taught broadly the same curriculum as they would if they were in school?

We teach the same curriculum remotely as we do in school wherever possible and appropriate. However, we have needed to make some adaptations in some subjects. For example, in Creative Studies we need to adjust our curriculum to ensure that practical activities can take place when students return to school.

Study time and accessing remote education

How long can I expect work set by the school to take my child each day?

We expect that remote education (including remote teaching and independent work) will take pupils broadly the following number of hours each day:

• Key Stage 3 and 4: 5 hours
• Key Stage 5: Up to 6 hours depending on timetable on a given day

How will my child access any online remote education you are providing?

All communication to students will be through Google Classroom. Students can access this at classroom.google.com.

We also use additional packages to support online learning including Seneca, Century, MathsWatch and others. Links to these packages and login help can be found on our Student Hub, at hub.hertswoodacademy.org.

If my child does not have digital or online access at home, how will you support them to access remote education?

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:

• All students are provided a school Chromebook to use both in school and at home. These remain the property of the Academy and are returned to the school when the student leaves. The use of these devices is under the conditions of Hertswood’s Acceptable User Policy for Students and Chromebook Usage Policy. These can be found, along with a safe use guide, in our ICT Policies for Students. Queries and support enquiries can be addressed to our IT team at helpdesk@hertswoodacademy.org.
• In certain circumstances, the Academy may be able to support students without home access to an internet connection, through provision of 4G wireless routers. If you would like to enquire about the possibility of this, please contact the school office.
• If a student is having difficulty accessing the online curriculum they should contact their Head of Learning either via email, or by contacting the school office.

How will my child be taught remotely?

We use a combination of the following approaches to teach pupils remotely:

• Live teaching (online lessons following the student’s normal timetable).
• Recorded teaching in combination with live teaching where appropriate.
• Commercially available websites supporting the teaching of specific subjects or areas, including video clips or sequences.

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?

Student engagement

• Students should register each morning on their year group Google Classroom. 
• Students should attend every lesson on their timetable remotely using the google meet link on the left hand side of the page.

Parental support

• In order to support your child in making the most of remote education it would be great if, where possible parents could support by:
  • Arranging a standard routine, including meal times and breaks, for students during this time.
  • Reminding your child that they should be following their normal timetable and making sure that they have a copy of this to hand.
  • Asking your child about their day and asking them to tell you what they have learnt.
  • Contacting the school if there are any barriers to your child’s learning so that we can work together to resolve any problems and ensure that all students can make progress.

How will you check whether my child is engaging with their work and how will I be informed if there are concerns?

Our aim is always to ensure that students are safe and making good progress.

Our pastoral team will work closely with the SEND, curriculum, and attendance teams to ensure that student engagement remains high during a period of remote education.

• Where students are engaging with lessons you will be made aware of the standard of engagement through weekly reports on Go4Schools.
• Where engagement is a concern, the pastoral and attendance teams will contact you directly when issues are highlighted. This may take the form of a phone call, email, text message or home visit depending upon the type and length of disengagement.

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:

• Students and parents will receive feedback weekly via Go4Schools reports.
• Students will receive feedback on assessments after they are completed and in line with the school assessment calendar.
• Students will receive feedback on some work set in lesson depending upon the content covered. This is at teacher discretion and could take many forms as listed above.

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:

• Our Learning Support Assistants (LSA) will still join lessons with the students that they usually support.
• Student may email the LSA if they need extra support and the LSA will do their best to support from a distance.
• If there are ongoing issues please contact send@hertswoodacademy.org and a member of the SEND team will contact you to discuss your concerns.

Remote education for self-isolating pupils

Where individual pupils need to self-isolate but the majority of their peer group remains in school, the remote education provided will differ from the approach for whole groups. This is due to the challenges of teaching pupils both at home and in school. Unfortunately, this means that we are not able to provide live lessons, however the following is available for students.

If my child is not in school because they are self-isolating, how will their remote education differ from the approaches described above?

All of our Schemes of Learning are available on the Student Hub. These will show you the information about the structure of a sequence of lessons.

In addition to this, teachers will upload their resources to Google Classroom for each lesson, daily. These will follow the same curriculum as students in school.

Students should access these resources and complete the work described.

At the end of the lesson students should submit their work to the teacher on Google Classroom to ensure that feedback can be provided as appropriate.

Students may also access our Online Learning packages and our Independent Learning task to enhance their learning. Details of these can also be found on the Student Hub.