St John Bosco Catholic Primary School

Introduction to Remote Learning

During these unprecedented times, children may be working remotely for a significant period of time either due to lockdown or having to self-isolate. At St. John Bosco, we want to ensure that children continue to receive the highest level of education despite the obvious difficulties.

Our number one priority is the safety and well-being of all children and staff at our school. It is important that anyone who cannot be in school remains at home but continues to be supported with their education and well-being.

See our: Remote Learning Plan

Who to Contact

If you have any questions or concerns regarding remote learning or need any further support, then please contact Mrs Grubham (Head of School). The best method of contact is via email – mandy.grubham@st-johnbosco.sandwell.sch.uk. Alternatively, you can call school on 0121 556 0228.

How Remote Learning Works

Any child who cannot attend school due to Covid-19 isolation or a national lockdown, will be fully supported with their learning. Daily timetables will be emailed to parents and also to Key Stage 2 children who have their own Outlook accounts.

Children will continue to receive a broad and balanced curriculum with all subjects being covered remotely in a variety of ways.

We have invested heavily in online resources to ensure that the children have high quality websites to use such as Purple Mash, Reading Plus, Reading Planet, SPaG.com, Maths.co.uk and TT Rock Stars. These resources all help to support children with their learning.

Daily timetables explain to the children what lesson they are doing and when. We use lots of video clips and video links to teach new content and to consolidate understanding. Children are given activities to complete either via one of the websites or by hand. When not using the websites, we ask children to email their work to their class teacher. This enables the teacher to see how well each child is doing, give praise and encouragement and support them to further progress through feedback and adapting the next lesson in the sequence of learning to further their understanding.

Children can complete activities on the computer or on paper and either email a copy of the file or take a photo of their completed work and email that to their teacher. It is important that we receive work regularly in order to support children to continue to progress and developing their understanding particularly because we are continuing to teach new concepts and skills.

We also offer daily live lessons through Teams for all Key Stage Two children. These lessons are used to teach children and ensure that children can ask and answer questions in order to cement their understanding.

Key Stage One children and EYFS have a weekly Teams meeting with their teacher and a small group of peers. These are an opportunity for children to interact with each other as well as be supported by their class teacher with both their well-being and their learning.

We also offer daily assemblies and collective worship – some of which are run through live Teams sessions for the whole school and other through links to Ten:Ten.

Weekly Phone Calls

All children will receive a weekly phone call from their teacher to check on their well-being and to support them with their home learning.

Praise and Feedback

Class teachers will email comments to children and parents regarding work submitted. Marvellous Me will also be used to send children badges for their efforts (contact school if you do not know your login details). Instant feedback can also be given through a number of the websites that we are using.

Each week, class teachers will nominate two children to receive a ‘Head Teacher’ Award. This may be for quality of work produced or levels of effort.

Mrs Grubham will phone these children to praise them and thank them for working so hard. They will then also receive a very special gift in the post.

A child receiving his Headteacher's Award

A delighted Nursery child receives his Headteacher Award