Remote Learning

Castle Hill Remote Learning


Of course we would love to have all of the pupils of Castle Hill to be in our wonderful school doing incredible things however during lockdowns we have taken our learning online. Our approach is the same: we will deliver the great learning opportunities and we expect pupils to be fully engaged. 


On this page, you will find out more information about how we do remote learning at Castle Hill as well as useful links to other websites that can support learning during lockdown. 


The pupils will be broadly taught the same curriculum remotely as they would have been learning at school. This means that our remote learning offers a broad and balanced curriculum and is scaffolded to meet the needs of specific children as necessary. 

EYFS

EYFS continue to use Tapestry to deliver learning activities. This is a combination of daily live lessons, pre recorded videos and tasks. Phonics is delivered through live sessions and are differentiated to meet the needs of pupils at different stages. 


Years 1-6 and Specialist Unit

Learning for the pupils in the rest of the school, including our specialist unit is delivered via Google Classroom. Each year group has a bespoke timetable where teaching is delivered as a combination of daily live lessons for Maths and English as well as topic lessons alongside some pre recorded sessions.  Tasks are set for pupils to complete using Google suite which allows pupils to turn in their work and be given feedback both to praise their efforts and address misconceptions.  

Each class also has live story time and PHSE sessions to ensure that the children are given opportunities to engage and interact with their teachers and peers. 

Curriculum

Our remote learning continues to be ambitious. This means that we are continuing to use all of the teaching approaches already in place in our school to support consistency and familiarity. This includes Talk for Writing, Talk for Reading, Fishing for Phonics and our Maths Mastery Flow. Each of these approaches are carefully sequenced to allow for both consolidation and progression and therefore it is important that pupils log in each day and attend all lessons if they are well. 


Our wider curriculum is equally ambitious. Specialist Forest School, Music and PE lessons are provided remotely for all pupils as well as our wider topic lessons covering the whole wider curriculum. 

Connecting with our Community

We love for the children to feel part of the larger Castle Hill community and therefore children can attend two assemblies per week. Our Tuesday assemblies are focussed on learning behaviours and metacognition and, using our Learning Knights, support the children to be able to understand what makes a great learner whether at home or at school. 

On Fridays, we celebrate the successes of the week in a celebration assembly. In this assembly we share great learning, effort and commitment. Following each assembly, certificates are delivered to children to ensure their successes are celebrated at home. 

As well as this, our staff continue to make regular telephone calls to each family to keep in touch, provide support and address concerns. 

Pupils with SEND

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. Class teachers will have regular contact with parents and carers to create more bespoke learning opportunities. For our more vulnerable pupils, we can also accommodate places at school during any lockdown.


In addition to this our intervention team continues to provide bespoke interventions for individuals and small groups. This includes phonics, Speech and Language, EPSMI (Maths) and Dyslexia outreach support. 

Getting support with remote learning

In the first instance, we ask parents and carers to contact the class teacher. This can be via email to the year group email addresses or via telephone to the school office. If there are issues that can not be resolved, the Learning and Phase Leaders will raise concerns with the Senior Leadership Team who can provide further support. 


Safeguarding

Our robust approach to Safeguarding continues during periods of remote learning. Any concerns can be raised with the DSL and Pastoral team, who meet formally at least once per week to discuss family concerns and provide support. We recognise that lockdowns can be particularly challenging and ensure that families can continue to have timely referrals to other services to support their needs as well as providing support via our own Trauma Informed Practitioners in school. 

We have updated our safeguarding policy specifically for remote learning, which can be found in the policies section of this website.

Remote Education Policy

Castle Hill Remote Education Policy Spring 21