Burley St Matthias Primary School

This is the general page for parents to support with getting your child learning while they are at home.  Each class has their own page too, but actually you will find you mostly will need to get them to log on to Google Classroom if they are in Y2-6 or log on yourself to Tapestry if they are in Reception or Y1.  Immediately below is our remote learning strategy, but keep scrolling for contact details if you need to report a positive case out of hours and also help files for the various digital platforms.

We do thank you for your patience while we all figure out how to make these work.  We are all - staff included - on a very steep learning curve at the moment and the technology doesn't always work smoothly or first time but we will all need to keep trying for the sake of the children's learning this year.

Here are some short videos explaining how to use Google Classroom and Tapestry.

There are also some help sheets explaining on 'paper' which are linked in the section below on Electronic Platforms

Parents and Student guide to Google Classroom on mobile devices

Parents and Student guide to Google Classroom on PC/ MAC/ Laptop etc.

Parents guide to Tapestry

If you have lost your child's Google Classroom Login details you can follow the

link here to retrieve them.

If you need additional help with the cost of data, some companies are offereing support for customers.  This is only available for households without a broadband connection. You can check the list and further details here.

If you would like us to make a request to your mobile phone company you will need to call us with the following information:

• the name of the account holder
• the number of the mobile device
• the mobile network of that device (for example Three)

We will ask you if you have read the privacy statement which is on the link here.

We will then process the request for you.

This year, all schools have to have a remote learning offer for pupils who are unable to attend school due to COVID-19.  

"Where a pupil, class, group or small number of pupils need to self-isolate, or there is a local lockdown requiring pupils to remain at home, DfE expects schools to be able to immediately offer them access to remote education. Schools should ensure remote education, where needed, is high-quality and aligns as closely as possible with in-school provision." DfE

Our full remote learning plan is here

As parents, we all need to try and understand that this is a different message from during the Summer Term lock down.  Children might be absent from school for a couple of days (e.g. waiting for a test result which then comes back negative), or up to 2 weeks completing a full self isolation period.  They might be the only one absent, one of a handful of children or their whole class or 'bubble' could be closed.  It is therefore important that parents do all they can to enable children at home to keep up with the work going on and being set by school.

We have been working really hard on what this will look like for you all and it isn't easy to meet all the very different needs of our families.  What we have tried to do is allow as much flexibility as we can in how children can access the learning going on in class so that we help them to keep up as much as possible.  Our approach is outlined below but we are happy to take feedback from you and will make adjustments where they are needed.

Electronic Platforms The government gave us a bit of help to set up remote learning platforms and all children in Year 2-6 should now have access to Google Classrooms.  We are going to be learning how to use this with them in class and their homework will be coming this way from now to help us all learn and be familiar with how it works.  There is a help sheet for logging in here.  In Reception and Year 1 we thought logging on and navigating around was a bit too hard, so we are going to carry on using Tapestry with these year groups. Tapestry information and permissions letter.

Get Going Sheets... All children have been sent home with a 'Get Going' sheet suitable for their year group.  This is emergency learning and will have on it lots of ideas of things that are always good to do in their year group.  If you have nothing else you can do - DO THIS!  Please keep this sheet safe at home somewhere for when you need it.  We will also try and email it as soon as we know you are self isolating and it will be on the class pages under the Remote Learning tab.

This week we are learning... Each week, each class will post a summary of the learning planned for the week.  It will be on Google Classroom/ Tapestry and also on the Remote Learning Class Pages each week.  This will help parents and children understand what is going on in class during the week.  If you don't want or aren't able to access the work being posted on Google Classroom, please try to match what you get your children doing to this weekly plan.

Individual Children are self isolating This is one of the hardest situations for us to cater for, because the teachers are all still teaching their classes full time.  We have decided not to try and offer 'live' teaching as this puts a lot of pressure on families trying to get the right children on devices at exactly the right time and also causes privacy issues for children still in class.  In Year 2-6 as much work as possible will be posted on Google Classroom and scheduled for each day.  Where we possibly can, this will also include videos of teaching.  You and your children will need to log on to Google Classroom each morning to see what work has been set for the day.  This will not mean they will need to be on a screen all day or need hours of access to an electronic device, but they should try to keep up with what is being taught day by day. You will see something similar on Tapestry for children in Reception and Year 1.

Bubble Closed If your child's bubble is closed the teaching and learning for each day will be posted with links to videos.  Again we will not offer 'live' lessons at this point for similar reasons and also because some of our teachers have their own families who might be at home which they are also trying to juggle.  Instead we will use Google Meet (this is like Zoom or MS Teams) to offer some contact with the teacher, hopefully every day.  This will allow teachers to check in with children and how they are accessing learning and also for the children to ask any questions.  There are guidelines around safe practice for this - children must be dressed and in a public space within your house (e.g. not in bedrooms or bathrooms) and you need to ensure that there is nothing in the background of the call which could cause offence.  We will try to ensure that 2 adults are always on these calls but if this is not possible the call will be recorded. If children need individual help or support we will follow this up.

Where school is only open to priority pupils (the children of critical workers and ‘vulnerable’ pupils) the school will assess the level of need for places, the available space and the available staff before deciding on the make-up of bubbles.  Children in school will generally be supervised to undertake the same ‘remote learning’ offer as children at home.  A minimum of 3 hours work will be set each day covering the full range of curriculum subjects as far as possible.  A daily or twice daily Google Meet or Zoom session will be scheduled for teachers to explain the work being set for the day ahead, deal with any common or likely misconceptions as well as share successes and discuss general wellbeing. Work set in English and maths will be supported by online video teaching where possible from White Rose Maths and Oak Academy mostly in the mornings and teachers and TAs will then support children to understand and be successful with this by answering questions from children both in the classroom and at home via online messages and (possibly) and open ‘Google Meet’ drop ins.  In the afternoons, TAs will supervise children in a timetabled rota of foundation subjects while teachers review and plan ahead for the coming day.  Wherever possible, foundation subjects will be provided for with off screen activities and projects to ensure children do not spend all day on screens.

For children in Reception and Year 1 the Tapestry platform will be used in place of Google Classroom.  More work will be ‘activity focused’ but will also include taught units from Oak Academy and phonics videos.

Handing in work for marking and feedback Children will be expected to return all the work they do at home to school for marking and feedback.  Ideally this should be through Google Classroom or Tapestry and there are lots of different ways of doing this from attaching files to sending photographs of handwritten work.  We will be doing lots of work in school teaching children how to use these platforms effectively.

COVID-19 Test Results

COVIDpositivetestresult@burleystmatthias.co.uk

We have a new email address set up (see above) just for you to let us know about a positive test result.  This may well come through out of office hours so you can use this to let us know as soon as you get a positive result so that we can take action.  Please be sure to include your child's name and class.

If you need to get in touch with school you should ring the office wherever possible rather than calling in.  You can also  email jtimmins@burleystmatthias.co.uk

Some of your emails have been going into our junk email folder, so please ring us if you haven't had a reply.

We will continue to send out text messages and emails.  These only go to Priority 1 contacts, so please forward them to others in your family as needed.