Due to the extreme circumstances we are currently facing as a country, we believe it is only right that we share our Home Learning Strategy with those who wish to use it in their own preparations and planning.

The strategy was devised by the Outwood Family’s Director of Computer Science, Ben Barnes. Below are the four steps we have taken as a Trust to prepare for potential school closures due to COVID-19.

Summary of Strategic Approach

• To provide a platform that is accessible for all students regardless of access to technology at home

• High quality resources were curated suitable for distance learning by masters of their craft

• To ensure that those who lack confidence with the use of technology are supported

• To provide effective communication and support for parents/carers to support students whilst at home.

Overview

Outwood Grange Academies Trust are consumers of G Suite for Education. All students have a login to G Suite with varying levels of adoption between our 32 academies.

Factors considered when deciding on a home learning strategy included:

• Ensuring quality of learning and resources for students

• Is the default approach of paper work packs for students effective and/or manageable for teachers upon return to work

• How can the strategy decided be implemented at short notice

• How to mitigate loss of teaching capacity due to those who become carers for their own children and/or relatives

• The environmental impact of the chosen strategy.

After considering these factors it was decided that home learning using G Suite was the best approach, we then needed to ensure that high quality resources were available, staff were supported in the use of technology and an appropriate communication strategy was created for both student and parents.

Step 1 - Ensuring access for all students

The Outwood Family works in a number of areas that have high levels of deprivation, therefore the assumption cannot be made that all students will have access to a laptop / PC at home. However, most students have access to some form of mobile device, therefore G Suite that is compatible with all devices. Principals were asked to discreetly find out which students may not have access to technology at home to ensure appropriate steps are put in place to ensure their learning can continue. 

A range of strategies were employed including:

• Using knowledge from colleagues within the academy to identify students

• Offering drop in sessions for students to come and speak to staff

• Creating an e-Safety questionnaire that includes questions on access to ICT at home, to subtly find out access to technology without causing embarrassment.

To ensure that all students were aware of their login for G Suite, we quickly ran an export of logins that were then distributed to academies through form groups using stickers to ensure all students knew how to login.

Step 2 - Creating high quality resources for home learning

The next step was to ensure there are high quality resources created that are suitable for home learning using technology, this is very different to creating resources for a normal face-to-face lesson.

Google’s own distance learning strategies were extremely helpful, but were adjusted to our context and shared with all staff, this can be found here.

The Outwood Family has a school improvement workforce of subject directors, these colleagues were pulled together at short notice to curate resources appropriate for home learning led by the Director of Computer Science. These teams quickly created a bank of resources that could be used by colleagues throughout the Outwood Family that embedded underlying principles of home learning, some of these ideas included:

• Providing support materials to allow students to get “unstuck” when they get stuck

• Not focusing on new learning but instead consolidating prior learning

• Creating activities that are self-marking to provide feedback to students should a member of staff no longer be able to work due to having to care for their family

• Create a varied range of activities to foster student engagement where self-motivation is needed.

These resources once produced would be provided to all colleagues in the relevant subject areas, these can then be used and/or referenced to, to ensure a high quality provision from home. The briefing that was provided to directors can be found here.

Step 3 - Support staff in implementation

Whilst G Suite is used within the Outwood Family not all staff are confident in its use, therefore we needed to make sure that appropriate support and time was given to staff to ensure they can use G Suite and in particular Google Classroom effectively.

Whilst there is a wide range of tutorial videos available on the internet for how to use G Suite and its apps, in this situation providing appropriate context to colleagues so that they can relate quickly, gain confidence and ensure they are fully setup for home learning.

Our fantastic team quickly created a website for effective use of G Suite to support colleagues, this can be found here.

As well as training videos, time was given to staff in their weekly CPD time to gain confidence in the use of this way of working and to set up their classrooms ready for home learning. A central inbox was setup to deal with queries and remove any anxiety barriers from staff at what could be a very stressful time.

In addition, to allow fast population of classes into Google Classroom, a team of people created a system of generating student usernames for each of their teaching groups from our own data system (Praising Stars), to make it as easy as possible for staff to set up a home learning platform.

Step 4 - Communicating with students and parents

Many students are already heavy users of Google Classroom, this makes a strategy like this much easier to implement.

Barriers still remain for those that do not use it as frequently so we need to ensure that appropriate steps are in place.

To ensure that students and parents are familiar with this way of working in event of a school closure, we have:

• Communicated home through letters and text messages to keep parents up-to-date and reassure them that we are putting appropriate steps in place in event of a closure

• Conducted assemblies with all year groups to let them know how work will be set in event of a closure, and the key ways of working and how to do it, the assembly that was used can be found here

• Set up a website with key messages for parents, that can be used as a “one-stop-shop” of all key information for them to best support their child(ren), including key ways of working for students. This will allow for them to support the learning in absence of a teacher from home. This website that has been created can be found here.

Summary

In summary, the strategy for Outwood Grange Academies Trust can be summarised as:

• Utilise the technology that we already have to provide familiarity for as many staff and students as possible

• Ensure there are high quality resources appropriate for home learning that provide self-marking at every opportunity to provide a backup should a member of staff be no longer able to work

• Remove barriers for all staff through appropriate support and training in a context that they can relate to

• Communicate effectively with students and then parents on best working practices in the event of a closure.

We want to say a huge thank you to Ben and all those who have helped develop our Home Learning Strategy.