Remote Curriculum
The HASN Virtual Curriculum: January to February 2021
In short, our Remote Learning offering is very easy and clear: we are providing a full timetable of lessons through Microsoft Teams, that mirrors the timetable in school, for every child in every year group. That means, that if a child would normally do Drama during Period 3 on a Wednesday, that lesson is now delivered remotely. Microsoft Teams is accessed using a student’s academy email address and login in, via the Student Sharepoint portal on the school website. All students received a tutorial during the Autumn term on how to access Remote Learning but any students or parents who have difficulties should email their Heads of Year who will be able to assist quickly.
Subject Leaders have adapted how they deliver knowledge so that even the most practical of subjects including Physical Education, Drama, Art and D.T have Remote Learning provision.
The timings of the lessons remain the same. Therefore, in Key Stage 3 you can expect your child to be in lessons from 09:00 until 14:50 each day with a twenty-minute break at 10:40, and a thirty-minute lunch at 12:40, and in KS4, you can expect your child to be in lessons from 09:00 until 14:50 on Monday and Friday, with a later finish of 15:40 Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday; and a twenty-minute break each day at 11:30, and a thirty-minute lunch each day at 13:30.
However, the structure and length of lessons have been altered slightly. A lesson begins with a short connect activity, is then followed by 15-20 minutes of teaching and a subsequent independent task for students to complete for 20-25 minutes. During the independent task, teachers remain available to students to answer questions via the Chat Function. For a double lesson, these times are either doubled or delivered as two single lessons. The reason lessons are slightly shorter than they would be in school is to give students frequent breaks from their screens and devices; however, the amount of work students are expected to complete remains the same. Work is submitted via Microsoft Teams assignments following the Academy’s usual marking policy guidelines.
We are currently exploring how to use emerging technologies such as Notebook so teachers can live mark key pieces of work.
For those students who work with our Additional Educational Needs teams, their interventions will continue online in Teams, or they will be invited to attend school to receive additional support if deemed appropriate by our SENCO. Similarly, those students who are self-isolating will continue with their provision of online tuition that has been in place since September.
Finally, there will be occasions during this period of school closure when teachers will become ill and be unable to teach their lessons. When this happens we will do our best to merge these lessons with another suitable teacher, or if that is not possible, sufficient work will be placed in the Teams Channel by either the teacher or their Head of Department.
