Covid-19
Measures for Academic Year 2021-22
*Update: as of 29/11/21, face coverings are required to be worn by staff and adults unless exempt (including visitors) when moving around in corridors and communal areas
The Government has made it a national priority that education and childcare settings should continue to operate as normally as possible during the COVID-19 pandemic – as a result, measures that were in place in Sept 2020- July 2021 are no longer required in schools. We no longer have to operate in bubbles or have staggered entry, exit or play. We will, of course, continue our high standards and increased amount of cleaning and ensure appropriate ventilation is in place in the school.
In the event that we have a member of staff or pupil test positive for the coronavirus, we will follow national and local guidelines. As of 16th August 2021, there is no recommendation for fully vaccinated adults or children below the age of 18 years and 6 months to isolate if they are close contacts or live in the same household as someone who tests positive.
However, we also recognise that Covid-19 is still a highly transmissable threat to health, and therefore, there may be times that local and national health teams require us to implement some additional measures. The measures may be necessary in some circumstances, for example:
• to help manage a COVID-19 outbreak within a setting
• as part of a package of measures responding to a Variant of Concern (VoC) or to extremely high prevalence of COVID-19 in the community
• to prevent unsustainable pressure on the NHS
Please see below our Outbreak Management Plan in the event we were advised to reintroduce any further measures to help break chains of transmission. An outbreak has been defined by the DfE as whichever of these thresholds is reached first:
• 5 children, pupils, students or staff, who are likely to have mixed closely, test positive for COVID-19 within a 10-day period; or
• 10% of children, pupils, students or staff who are likely to have mixed closely test positive for COVID-19 within a 10-day period
Please note, the school would only take any action in this plan if we were advised to by external public health teams.
In the event that there may be a local or National lockdown, or advised isolation please see our offer below:
Here at Preston Hedge’s we have a robust offering for our children to ensure that they continue learning a full and well-sequenced curriculum, which is appropriately differentiated and enables them to challenge themselves. Our remote learning offers the same curriculum content as pupils would have in school.
Our Remote Learning Platform and Educational Offer
Utilising Zoom and Seesaw as a digital platform (which is a medium that the children are already familiar with in school) we have chosen to use a remote learning approach that includes:
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- ‘Live’ lessons across all subjects
- Resources attached to these sessions available on Seesaw with marking and feedback provided by the teacher
- ‘Live’ check ins, wellbeing sessions and story time to provide much needed social interaction and enable face-to face discussion with the teacher
We believe that this approach enables our pupils to be able to work more independently, and supports them to learn and consolidate the new knowledge and skills whilst also maintaining those vital social connections and interaction with their peers and teachers.
What Daily Remote Learning Looks Like
We provide a minimum of 3 -4 hours remote learning a day, as is required by the DfE, plus the additional live contact sessions for children.
Remote learning follows the following schedule (with a minimum of 3 subject sessions a day):
Reception (on Zoom & Tapestry)
- Daily live phonics sessions on Zoom to start the day
- Daily live Maths on Zoom – plus uploaded work related to this
- Daily live English – plus uploaded work related to this.
- Daily live afternoon Zoom check in
- Daily Curriculum lessons with a walkthrough video plus work related to this – across a week these sessions include the following:
- 3 Creative Curriculum themed sessions
- A PE session a week- a walkthrough video plus work related to this.
- A Wellbeing Wednesday session
Year 1 (on Zoom & Seesaw)
- Daily live phonics sessions on Zoom to start the day
- Daily live Maths on Zoom – plus uploaded work related to this
- Daily live English on Zoom – plus uploaded work related to this
- Daily live Curriculum lessons plus uploaded work related to this – across a week these sessions include the following:
- 2 Creative Curriculum themed sessions
- A weekly PE session – a walkthrough video plus work related to this.
- A Wellbeing Wednesday session
- A Science session – a walkthrough video plus work related to this.
Years 2-6 (on Zoom & Seesaw)
- Daily live introduction to the day session (9.30 am start on their Zoom meeting room)
- Daily Maths (appropriate to their Maths group needs) which includes:
- Monday Arithmetic with a video and work related to this
- Tuesday – Friday live Zoom Maths lessons plus uploaded work related to this
- Daily live English which includes:
- Live Guided Comprehension on Zoom plus uploaded work related to this
- Tues – Friday live English unit sessions plus uploaded work related to this. This will encompass analysis, writing techniques and the big write over a 2 week period
- Daily live Curriculum plus uploaded work related to this – across a week these sessions include the following:
- 1 or 2 Creative Curriculum themed lessons
- A Music lesson
- A Science lesson
- A PE lesson
- A Spanish lesson (for Years 3-6)
- Wednesday Wellbeing session (15 – 30 mins)
Parents of remote learners are also directed to a number of apps that the school has bought: TT Rockstars, SPAG.com, Phonics Play – if their child requires additional learning, and where resource packs are appropriate to support learning (for example, to support the delivery of remote education for our younger pupils in Reception or Year 1) we ensure that parents have access to these.
Reading
Keeping our children reading is so important to us, so we have invested in a number of e-book providers to ensure that our children have lots of access to books and our children have log ins for these. These are:
Oxford Owl e-book library (with books linked to our school reading scheme)
Sora – the online library – lots of books for free readers
Capita Reading Cloud – OverDrive eBooks
Some of our children who need additional support with their reading have a further 1:1 reading session with a member of staff built into their timetable.
Engagement
We know that giving children a routine is really important in lockdown as it ensures our children have a bit of normality.
In order to set a routine to the day, remote learning starts with a Zoom call from the teacher. This enables the teacher to check in with the children, ensure that they are all coping well with their learning, set expectations of learning for the day, and provide some much needed class social interaction.
Our live small group lessons begin immediately after this.
Lessons are uploaded in advance, so that straight after their Zoom lesson ends, the rest of the day’s learning can continue. This enables our families to structure timings appropriate to their needs.
It is imperative that your child engages with their remote learning, as this will avoid children returning to schools with gaps in their learning. If a child is not engaging with their learning or the Zoom session, an informal phone call to parents would take place so that we can understand any blocks to learning that may be happening and resolve these. If we cannot establish contact with the family, our safeguarding processes would then be put into place, and this may result in a home visit.
Marking and Feedback
During a full class bubble, year group bubble, or school closure, teachers will respond to the work produced by children on a daily basis on the Seesaw platform. This will either be feedback and next steps in their learning where appropriate, or detailing that the work has been seen and approved by the teacher as meeting the objective.
This style of feedback is important as it enables teachers to show the children areas where they can improve or progress further, or signify where errors have been made in key areas of their learning; however, as teachers are feeding back to over a 100 uploads a day, in depth feedback will be mixed with approvals to ensure that this is sustainable. All pupils will receive this blend of feedback on a daily basis.
Children with 1:1/ Additional Needs
Our children with learning needs all have appropriately differentiated learning in place for them, which supports their learning as it would in the classroom. Children with 1:1 also have a daily live lesson with their 1:1, and for some children, where it is appropriate, we offer live 1:1 reading sessions with our reading focused support team during full school closures.
Remote Learning for Individual Isolation/Small Groups of Pupils Whilst all Other Pupils are in School. Updated May 2021
In the event that a child or a small number of pupils from a class needs to isolate due to track and trace, whilst the school is fully open, a laptop will be placed into the classroom to enable isolating pupils to Zoom into the class sessions, which will avoid the child being disadvantaged in their learning due to isolation reasons. Any resources related to the sessions will be uploaded onto the children’s Seesaw account. Any work completed by the child can then be uploaded to Seesaw enabling the teacher to provide direct feedback to the child.
Technology
We have identified any families who need technology support and have lent out IT equipment to enable all of our children to access remote learning. If you feel you would benefit from this, please contact the school on jay.upton@prestonhedges.org to make a request.
Safeguarding and Disadvantaged Pupils
We have robust systems to ensure that, when isolating, any of our pupils who need welfare checks are contacted by our DSL and Safeguarding Team. If you have any concerns or anxieties, please do get in touch with vanessa.tear@prestonhedges.org