Schools must have remote learning plans ready within weeks, says Department for Education
Schools must have remote teaching contingency plans ready by the end of September in case classes or groups of pupils are forced to self-isolate, new government guidance states.
The Department for Education expects teachers to provide pupils with access to high quality remote, and printed, resources in the event of future lockdowns.
However, these should “avoid an over-reliance on long-term projects or internet research activities”.
The guidance states that “where a class, group or small number of pupils need to self-isolate, or there is a local lockdown requiring pupils to remain at home, we expect schools to have the capacity to offer immediate remote education.
“Schools are expected to consider how to continue to improve the quality of their existing offer and have a strong contingency plan in place for remote education provision by the end of September.
“This planning will be particularly important to support a scenario in which the logistical challenges of remote provision are greatest, for example where large numbers of pupils are required to remain at home.”
The contingency plans must be sequenced so that they link to the school’s curriculum, and staff must be trained in the use of online teaching tools.
Schools must also “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”, the DfE said.
The guidance expects schools to:
- set assignments so pupils have meaningful and ambitious work each day in a number of different subjects
- teach a planned and well-sequenced curriculum to enable knowledge and skills to be built incrementally, with 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 and/or videos
- gauge how well pupils are progressing, 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
The guidance includes links to lists of resources and other information about how to prepare for online learning.
