King's St Alban's
23 May
Remote Learning At King’s St Alban’s
Remote online lessons, virtual assemblies, virtual storytime, virtual music concerts and virtual weekly challenges have all become a norm for pupils at King’s St Alban’s.
Mr Chapman, Head of King’s St Alban’s provides an insight into how the school has adapted over the recent weeks and the remote learning provision at King’s St Alban’s.
“We have all had to adapt really quickly to this new way of learning remotely. Children here have benefited from online timetables similar to what they would be covering in normal lessons, with a few minor tweaks. We have been lucky enough to have technology and learning platforms that have made this transition to virtual learning seamless and I am delighted that the pupils and staff at the school have embraced learning in this new way.
The most important thing is that the children benefit from the continuity of education at this time. The teaching and support staff have worked tirelessly to ensure that we provide the best remote learning possible and the feedback from pupils and parents has been extremely positive.”
The King’s St Alban’s Teaching Staff HQ
“Business (Learning) as usual”
For children here at King’s St Alban’s it’s been business as usual, with those children in Reception to Year 2 (our Pre-Prep School), working to a slightly condensed timetable. In addition to English, maths, science, topic, and RE/PSHE, these children have also received weekly PE lessons, Forest School, art, French and music lessons all delivered by our subject specialist teachers.
For children in Years 3 to 6, maths and English are given most curriculum time and they also benefit from French, music, PE, art, RE, and science lessons.
Interactive Learning Platforms
We have used two online learning platforms, Class Dojo and Showbie which has ensured that we are delivering a safe, interactive, and structured approach to our remote learning. All year groups have benefitted from online pre-recorded lessons from their teachers.
Class Dojo website and app, is used in our Pre-Prep (Reception through to year 2) and has been well received by pupils, parents, and staff. It connects primary school teachers, students, and families, through communication features, such as a feed for photos and videos from the school day, and messaging. Lessons are uploaded the day before with videos, pictures, documents, PowerPoints, and website links. Parents, then send work back via the pupil portfolio or by sending it by message or email. Our teachers then can respond to each piece of work, providing guidance and rewards via Class Dojo points.
Showbie has proved to be an excellent, intuitive platform for Junior School pupils allowing video content, easy scanning, live discussions, and efficient marking. Engagement levels have been very high and progression and feedback from pupils have been positive.
I just wanted to let you know how happy and relieved we are with the new school system. It worked really smoothly, with a clear sense of timetable and well-planned lessons. We truly appreciate the time and effort that this took from your holidays to give us a sense of normality.
We had a stress-free day here and I just wanted to thank you and the staff for that.
The online learning provided by King’s St Alban’s has been better than I could have imagined it could be. I have a child in Year 1 and Year 6. The video clips for younger age children have helped enormously, whether it is their teacher reading a story, explaining a maths activity or challenging them to do a sporting activity. The older children have also been able to have class discussions online and ask teachers for help via the learning platform. The condensed timetable works really well. They have been able to focus on core subjects in the morning, allowing for sport or art in the afternoon.