Contingency Planning for Remote Education and Continuation of Service

Contingency Planning for Remote Education and Continuation of Service
This plan will address the requirement for remote education of students (individuals or groups) in response to students having to self-isolate, year group or bubble lockdown, rota of year groups or school closure. It will also address the need to maintain the buildings and continue support services in the Academy.

Students who are Self-isolating or have a Positive COVID test result:
These students will continue to access our work from staff on Class Sites and subject Hub Sites. It will be the responsibility of the Head of Year to ensure that work is being uploaded on a regular basis for students. Form Tutors will be expected to make contact with students on a weekly basis to ensure that work is being uploaded and to check on the wellbeing of the students. There will also be paper based work packs that will be posted to families.

Bubble closure:
Where a Bubble is closed by direction from PHE WM or the Local Authority, it will be the expectation that lessons continue to be delivered as per the normal school timetable. These will be delivered via Microsoft Teams.

In developing our work online, we will ensure that, as a minimum, we:

• use a curriculum sequence that allows access to high-quality online and offline resources and teaching videos and that this is linked to the school’s curriculum expectations.
• give access to high quality remote education resources.
• select the online tools that will be consistently used across the school in order to allow interaction, assessment and feedback and make sure staff are trained in their use.
• provide printed resources, such as textbooks and workbooks, for pupils who do not have suitable online access.
• recognise that younger pupils and some pupils with SEND may not be able to access remote education without adult support and so schools should work with families to deliver a broad and ambitious curriculum.

When we are teaching remotely, we will expect as a minimum, staff to:

• set assignments so that pupils have meaningful and ambitious work each day in a number of different subjects.
• teach a planned and well-sequenced curriculum so that knowledge and skills are built incrementally, with a good level of clarity about what is intended to be taught and practised in each subject.
• provide frequent, clear explanations of new content, delivered by a teacher in the school or through high-quality curriculum resources or videos. gauge how well pupils are progressing through the curriculum, using questions and other suitable tasks and set a clear expectation on how regularly teachers will check work.
• enable teachers to adjust the pace or difficulty of what is being taught in response to questions or assessments, including, where necessary, revising material or simplifying explanations to ensure pupils’ understanding.
• plan a programme that is of equivalent length to the core teaching pupils would receive in school, ideally including daily contact with teachers.

In order to ensure that students have access to laptops and Wi-Fi we will make students laptops available for students that are identified as not having access to devices. We have a limited number of Wi-Fi dongles available to give to students to support connectivity.

Support on delivering remote education safely is available from:

• Safe remote learning, published by SWGfL.
• Online safety and safeguarding, published by LGfL, which covers safe remote learning.
• The National Cyber Security Centre, which includes which video conference service is right for you and using video conferencing services securely.
• Safeguarding and remote education during coronavirus (COVID-19), published by DfE.
• annex C of keeping children safe in education.

Tier 2 Rota System:
A rota system will limit the number of pupils on-site at any one time and break transmission chains within schools when scheduled time at home is long enough for the onset of symptoms to be detected before returning. We would therefore operate a two-week rota. Where a rota system is being used the expectations for remote learning for the other bubbles would continue. Our rota system will be based on bubbles or year groups. An example of how this may work is set out below, but will be dependent on which bubbles or year groups are requested to self-isolate. The rota may be required for single or multiple groups depending on the local situation. Vulnerable children and those of critical workers (see updated government list) from all year groups will continue to be educated on site. We will continue to deliver the timetable in full and all staff would be expected to be on site and deliver remote lessons from within the Academy unless told not to attend.

Tier 3 Lockdown
On site education will only be provided for vulnerable children and those of critical workers (see updated government list). All other year groups will receive remote education. Selected staff will be on site to support the education of vulnerable children and children of critical workers (see updated government list). Staff will teach daily sessions to students to fulfil the principles as laid out in the opening paragraph.

Support Staff
Support staff will continue to be required onsite to support the education of vulnerable and critical worker children. This will include Administration, Site, Catering, Learning Support, Safeguarding Etech and Technician staff will continue to all be required to attend during Tier 1 and Tier 2 lockdown. At Tier 3 and 4 rotas may be put in place for staff to be able to work from home.

Maintenance
Site staff will be expected to continue with the maintenance schedule for buildings, mechanicals, Fire and all other Health and Safety areas to ensure that school can re-open quickly and efficiently at the end of the lockdown period.

SEND
Students with an identified SEND fall under the vulnerable category and should continue to access education on site.

Safeguarding
Safeguarding processes will need to be adapted as per the Policy annexe. These students should be continuing to access onsite education at all times.

Pastoral Care and Wellbeing

Heads of Year will be responsible for the continuation of pastoral processes during lockdown. Students should have access to a weekly assembly and Form Tutors are to hold daily check in sessions for their forms. They will have a list of vulnerable students who are not accessing onsite education and they will be expected to contact the students as per the Safeguarding schedule.