Remote Education Policy

Vision

St Rose’s strives to be an exceptional Catholic specialist school and college delivering the highest quality education, therapy and care for children and young adults. Our strategy for remote learning continues this.

Aims

This Remote Education Policy aims to:
• Ensure access to remote learning for all students who aren’t in school/college through use of quality online and offline resources or teams video facilities.
• Provide clear expectations to members of the school/college community with regards to delivery of high quality interactive remote learning
• Include continuous delivery of the core values and work of the school/college curriculum, as well as support for student wellbeing and support for parents.
• Consider continued education for staff and parents (e.g. CPD, Personal development Reviews)
• Support effective communication between the school/college and families to encourage engagement/ attendance to learning and best practice around remaining safe online.

Who is this policy applicable to?

A student who is absent because our school/college cannot open safely or students who are well enough to learn but are unable to physically attend school/college.
have Covid-19 or are absent because of a long term illness or problem.
St Rose’s/St Martin’s will consider providing remote education to students which might include the following circumstances:
• when in-person attendance is either not possible to do safely or contrary to local or government guidance
• when individual students, for a limited duration, are unable to physically attend school/college but are able to continue learning.
– They have an infectious illness
– They are preparing for or recovering from some types of operation
– They are recovering from injury and attendance may inhibit their recovery
– There attendance has been affected by their special educational need or disability (SEND) or a mental health issue
School/college will consider providing students with remote education on a case-by case basis.
In the limited circumstances when remote learning is used, we will:
• Gain mutual agreement of remote education by the school/college, parents/carers, students and if appropriate, a relevant medical professional. We will also discuss our decision with the relevant local authority.
• Put formal arrangements in place to regularly review it and identify how to integrate the student back into school/college
• Identify what other support and flexibilities can be put in place to help integrate the student back into school/college at the earliest opportunity
• Set a time limit with an aim that the student returns to in person education with appropriate support

Content and Tools to Deliver This Remote Education Plan

Resources to deliver this Remote Education Plan could include any of the following:
• Parents will receive an adapted timetable for their child
• Parents will receive their child’s Individual Plan with termly targets for Maths/Cognition, English/Communication, PSD, Physical and sensory, Self-care and independence.
• Online resources relevant to the ability of the individual students for EYFS, KS1, KS2, KS3 & KS4, KS5 and FE including links to Zoom for lessons, gatherings or external events (for example assemblies and music therapy), log on details to resources (for example Helpkidzlearn, YouTube videos, BBC Bitesize/CBeebies)
• Online resources for staff training and contact with parents
• Use of recorded video for recording special events or instructional videos
• Phone calls home
• Printed learning packs with worksheets
• Physical materials such as story books and writing tools

Home and School/College Partnership
St Rose’s is committed to working in close partnership with families and recognises each family is unique and because of this, remote learning will look different for different families in order to suit their individual needs and the needs of the young person.
Because of the SEND needs of the individual children, teaching staff will work with families to assess and agree the best structure for the learning and day. They will provide support for parents to access any online resources and encourage them to change activities regularly. Where possible and beneficial, parents will be encouraged to maintain a regular and familiar routine.

The majority of our students are unable to access remote education without adult support. We are planning to deliver a broad and ambitious curriculum and our intention is that our students will continue to engage in learning as far as possible. We would encourage parents to support their children through helping them to engage and using the resources they have been given.

Every effort will be made by staff to ensure that the work is able to be realistically supported by the family.
All students, parents and carers are sent the ICT usage agreement and advise on online safety which includes e-safety rules and this applies when children are working online at home.

Roles and responsibilities

Teachers

When providing remote learning, teachers will ensure the values and targets within the pupils EHCP are being included when planning work and monitoring progress. Teachers will make reasonable adjustments to work towards the targets in the plan and if these present as unachievable via remote learning they will discuss with parents and inform the Vice Principal.

When providing remote learning, teachers should:
• Provide students with access to remote education as soon as reasonably practicable, though in proportion to the length of absence and disruption to the learning of all learners
• Make reasonable adjustments for students to access remote education, where required, informed by relevant considerations including the support families will require and the types of services that pupils can access remotely
When providing remote learning, teachers are responsible for:
Setting work:
o Teachers will set work for the students in their classes.
o Weekly work will be shared with families to encourage active involvement where possible
Providing feedback on work:
o Teachers will be expected to give feedback to students and parents where remote work is submitted to them by parents.
Keeping in touch with students who aren’t in school/college and their parents:
o If there is a concern around the level of engagement of students/parents, carers, they should be contacted via phone to access whether staff can assist with engagement.
o All parent/carer emails should come through the school/college e mail accounts. Staff are encouraged to use zoom/Teams for parents’ meetings and EHCP reviews to allow for views of children and wider family members where appropriate.
o Any complaints or concerns shared by parents or pupils should be reported to a member of LMT– for any safeguarding concerns, refer immediately to the DSL
o Teachers will keep a record of contact with parents/carers on a St Rose’s template.
o Teachers will ask parents and students for feedback about the teaching.
o Teachers will send out feedback forms to students (where relevant) and parents.

Teaching Assistants
Teaching Assistants may be asked to support students who have been long term absent due to illness and may visit them in their homes if that is considered appropriate for the staff member and the student and their family.

Senior Leaders
Alongside any teaching responsibilities, senior leaders are responsible for:
Co-ordinating the remote learning approach across the school/college including daily regular monitoring of engagement.
Monitoring the effectiveness of remote learning – through regular meetings with teachers and subject leaders, reviewing samples of work set or reaching out for feedback from pupils and parents.
Monitoring the security of remote learning systems, including data protection and safeguarding considerations.

Designated safeguarding lead
The DSL is responsible for managing and dealing with all safeguarding concerns. For further information, please see the Safeguarding Children and Young People Policy and the Safeguarding adults with care and support needs Policy.

IT Coordinator
IT staff member is responsible for:
Fixing issues with systems used to set and collect work
Helping staff (and when possible parents) with any technical issues they’re experiencing
Reviewing the security of remote learning systems and flagging any data protection breaches to the data protection officer
Assisting pupils, staff and parents with accessing the internet, Zoom or other apps to support learning or safeguarding.
Ensuring staff use zoom meetings safely (see Appendix)

The Principal
They will work with the senior leaders to ensure that all EHCP reviews and planned parents evenings continue via Zoom or other communications. Liaising with the ICT technicians to ensure that the technology used for remote learning is accessible.

The Business Manager
Ensuring value for money when arranging the procurement of equipment or technology.
Ensuring that the school has adequate insurance to cover all remote working arrangements.

Students and parents/carers
Staff can expect students learning remotely to:
Complete work to the best of their abilities set by teachers
Inform parents or teachers if they’re not able to complete work (if they are able)
Staff can expect parents/carers with children learning remotely to:
Make the school/college aware if their child is sick or otherwise can’t complete work
Seek help from the school/college if they need it
Be respectful when making any complaints or concerns known to staff

Governing Board
Monitoring the school/college’s approach to providing remote learning to ensure education remains as high quality as possible

Ensuring that staff are certain that remote learning systems are appropriately secure, for both data protection and safeguarding reasons

Who to contact
If staff have any questions about remote learning they should contact the following individuals:

o Issues with online behaviour or wellbeing: talk to the teacher
o Concerns about safeguarding: talk to the DSL
o Issues with setting work, data protection: talk to the Principal or Head of school
o Concerns with hardware or software or online safety: talk to the Head of school or IT Department

Data Protection
Accessing personal data
When accessing personal data and providing for remote learning purposes, all staff members will:
• Use school equipment to provide remote learning and St Rose’s encrypted and password protected portable hard drives for storage.
• Hold Staff Meetings by 365 Teams when needed
• Continue to use only St Rose’s e-mails when communicating on school/college matters.
• Continue to use an encrypted e-mail when communicating on safeguarding matters.
• Use school/college laptops and iPads to access remote learning provided by teachers when students are on site

Processing personal data
• Staff members may need to collect and/or share personal data such as phone numbers or email addresses as part of the remote learning system, this will be sent to staff using their encrypted email.
• Staff are reminded to collect and/or share as little personal data as possible online.
• Staff will delete the information when no longer needed for remote learning (shredding for hard copies/deleting computer files)

Keeping devices secure
All staff members will take appropriate steps to ensure their devices remain secure. This includes, but is not limited to:
• Using their St Rose’s laptop for remote learning work.
• Not working in a public space, such as a park/café, when providing remote learning/planning/marking etc
• Keeping the laptop/hard drive password-protected – strong passwords as outlined in our Password Policy.
• Locking laptops when not in use or left inactive for a period of time.
• Not sharing a St Rose’s laptop with family or friends to use.
• Ensuring antivirus software and Windows updates are up to date – discuss with IT if unsure.

Safeguarding and Safety
Please also refer to Safeguarding Children and Young People Policy, Safeguarding Adults with Care and Support Needs policy.
During Remote Learning sessions:
• Staff and students must wear suitable clothing, as should anyone else in the household.
• Any computers used should be in appropriate areas, for example, not in bedrooms; and where possible be against a neutral background.
• Any live lessons may be recorded
• Language must be professional and appropriate, including any family members in the background

If you wish to talk with a DSL you can call the St Rose’s office on 01453 763793 and you will be contacted by the DSL or the Deputy DSL for school/college.

APPENDIX

Staff received the following information to ensure safety when using teams.

Staff are advised to use the teams video conferencing facility provided with their school email account.

Passcodes should be created by the Meeting Organiser and used for entering meetings where possible. This will protect the confidentiality of the discussions.

Organisers should take responsibility for:

· verifying the identity of all participants on the call

· appropriately approving participants being held in the lobby

· removing participants that have not been successfully identified

Any file sharing between participants should be arranged outside of Video Conferencing software to ensure data security.

We also implemented a two factor authentication strategy to better secure accounts. Where mobile phones cannot be used in classrooms for authentication, we have offline codes that are used for this purpose.