We have been using Google Workspace for Education (formerly known as G Suite and Google Apps for Education) since 2014. Each pupil has a school Google account which gives them features such as:

• Gmail – an email account (which doesn’t allow communication beyond our school domain);
• Drive – cloud storage for all files accessible on any internet connected device;
• Docs – word processing in the cloud which allows collaborative working;
• Slides – slideshows in the cloud, again allowing collaborative working and teachers and pupils can easily share resources and work;
• Sheets – a spreadsheet which will allow pupils to take record and process data as well as create graphs and produce live links to docs;
• Classroom – pupils will find all of their tasks in Google Classroom as well as links to Google Meets for live lessons. Tasks also link to their Google Calendar so that pupils can stay organised and the Guardian Email Summaries provide daily or weekly updates to keep the family informed on tasks and deadlines.

If pupils have any technical difficulties accessing remote education they should contact itsupport@hulmegrammar.org. If there are any connectivity issues related to remote learning please also inform the school office (admin@hulmegrammar.org) so that the information can be passed on to the relevant teachers.

Learning isn’t fundamentally different when done remotely. Learning is still about retaining skills and knowledge over the long term, and being able to transfer this into new contexts. The work set will reflect the normal curriculum objectives, but the sequencing and specific learning activities may differ from those in a classroom setting.

Teachers at Hulme will use a range of different methods to best ensure effective learning. We know the importance of high quality, teacher led instruction to build knowledge in long term memory. We understand the effectiveness of modelling our ‘expert’ thought processes to enable pupils to become more independent learners and develop their own meta-cognitive skills. Teachers at Hulme also understand the vital importance of retrieval practice, through frequent, low-stakes testing with spaced practice to assess learning. All of the characteristics of effective teaching and learning will continue with remote education just as they would in our physical classrooms.

Senior School

The following school closure timetable will be followed by all teachers and pupils in the Senior School:

8:50 – 9:05            Registration / Check in with form tutor

9:05 – 10:05          Period 1

10:05 – 10:25        Break

10:25 – 11:25        Period 2

11:30 – 12:30        Period 3

12:30 – 13:30        Lunch

13:30 – 14:30        Period 4

14:30 – 14:45        Break

14:45 – 15:45        Period 5

Assemblies, inter-house competitions and some extra-curricular activities will also be running as normal.

For each lesson work will be set via Google Classroom. The amount of work set will reflect the length of the lesson.

Junior School

The following school closure timetable will be followed by all teachers and pupils in the Junior School:

8:30 – 9:00am Check in/ Registration on Google Classroom (children need to have checked in by 9:30am)

9:00am – 9:30am PE with Joe Wicks/ PE Challenge activity

9:30am- 12 noon Maths and English lessons (the morning will include a break)

1:15pm-1:30pm Reading

1:30pm-3:15pm Afternoon Lessons

3:15pm Assembly

Afternoon lessons: Monday- Computer Science; Tuesday- Music and Spanish; Wednesday- Science; Thursday- Humanities (History/ Geography/RS); Friday- Art/ DT

Nursery and Infants

A typical remote learning day will generally consist of the following for Nursery and Infant pupils:

9.00am – a mini workout with a member staff from the Nursery and Infants or an exercise class set by the class teacher.

9.30am – pupils will join their class teacher, or a member of staff from their class bubble, for form time and a live lesson.

For the remainder of the day each class will follow the bespoke planning grid that is set by their class teacher.

On average, pupils will be invited to three live lessons a day which will vary in length depending on the age of the child and the content of the lesson.

Parents should email the work that their child has completed to their class teacher and will often receive some feedback which should be communicated to their child. It should be noted that not every piece of work will need a response from the teacher.

Remote learning is not fundamentally different from other forms of teaching and learning, as discussed in the curriculum section above. There are two terms often used with remote learning: synchronous and asynchronous education. Synchronous education is live lessons whereas asynchronous is when the material is prepared by the teacher and accessed by the pupil at a later date. It is also important to note that remote education is not the same as digital, or online learning. When planning lessons, the teachers at Hulme will consider the best approach and organise the lessons to make the most effective progress through the curriculum, building knowledge, skills and understanding for the long term.

Synchronous, live lessons will be delivered through Google Meet. Live lessons have the advantage that teachers can use features such as breakout rooms for group discussions, polls, hand raising and a digital whiteboard. It gives the teacher greater control over the lesson and enables them to adjust the pace of the lesson according to feedback from the pupils in the lesson. All live lessons are recorded.

Asynchronous lessons may use pre-recorded explainer videos where Hulme teachers talk over and annotate PDFs or Slides presentations. This can be really effective for modelling a particular technique as pupils can watch and rewatch the videos at their preferred pace. Lessons may also utilise videos from other sources. These might feature world renowned experts or particular high quality, or difficult to reproduce, animations. An advantage of asynchronous lessons is that the teacher can spend more time giving feedback to pupils on their work.

Different approaches will be used depending on the context of the class and topic. For example, some lessons may use a ‘flipped learning’ model where new content is taught through an asynchronous recorded lesson. The later part of the lesson is then conducted live, where the pupils can continue to practice applying their knowledge whilst getting feedback and tutoring from the teacher in the Meet.

Our planning will also take into account a mixture of online and offline tasks so that pupils will not be required to have 5 hours of screen time each day. This mixture of activities will involve some tasks away from the screen and may include some longer projects.

Teachers will be available online and following their normal timetable, including morning form period. The monitoring software GoGuardian may be used during timetabled lessons so that pupil progress can be monitored in real-time and teachers are able to respond in a timely manner to pupil needs.

Teachers will take into account adaptations to home learning for pupils on the SEN / Gifted and talented register and ensure that they are able to access the work at home and that there are appropriate expectations of the work they will produce.  

Nursery and Infants

In many ways the remote education provision in the Nursery and Infants will follow the main principles as set out above. It must be remembered though that pupils in the Nursery and Infants are aged between 3 and 7 years old and therefore they cannot be expected to be online all day.

Available teaching and learning tools

There are many online tools available which can enrich home learning. Teachers at Hulme enjoy sharing ideas for effective strategies on the “Learning and Teaching” Classroom. Here are some of our more commonly used tools:

1. GoGuardian enables teachers to monitor live data from pupil screens. This is the digital equivalent of circulating the room and lets teachers monitor pupil progress in real-time. Pupils who are stuck or distracted can be quickly identified.
2. Live lessons using Google Meet. The use of breakout rooms has been commented on by many colleagues as a great way of getting pupils to talk to each other and to you as a teacher.
3. Recording the narration of a presentation or modelling a particular technique using Screencastify. Screencastify has a video editor which allows clips to be trimmed and also allows different videos (not necessarily from Screencastify) to be combined together.
4. Google Forms. These enable teachers to assess pupil understanding using a mixture of multiple choice, short and longer answer questions.
5. Originality reports can be run for any assignment set on Google Classroom. This enables pupils and teachers to see what percentage of the work submitted is original and how much comes from different internet sources including work submitted by other pupils.
6. Mote is great for giving effective feedback on pupil work. Mote allows teachers to leave verbal feedback (instead of, or in addition to a written comment) on any piece of work.
7. Subject-specific subscribed software e.g. Educake, Hegarty Maths, Kerboodle, MyMaths. These subject specific pieces of software enable quick, effective feedback as well as high quality notes and in some cases explainer videos.
8. Nearpod is a great way of creating interactive presentations. These presentations can be teacher-paced, for use during a live lesson or student-paced for use with pre-recorded content.

Senior School

1. Pupils should be online and follow their normal timetable. Pupils should check in with their form tutors at 8.50 am (there will be no pm registration). This will enable teachers to respond to pupil needs and keep the structure of the school day.
2. Pupils should regularly check email and Google Classroom to see the information for each lesson, as well as other communication such as assemblies.
3. Pupils must complete all work set, unless they are unwell.
4. Pupils should submit work for marking and feedback via Google Classroom.
5. Pupils must use email or Google Classroom comments to communicate with their teachers and ask questions if they do not understand.
6. If taking part in a Google Meet pupils must be dressed in an appropriate manner even if their webcam is turned off. Live Meets will be recorded.
7. Pupils should stay on the Meet until the teacher has finished the lesson. Often teachers like to wrap up the lesson with a brief summary and explanation of how your learning fits into the bigger picture of the whole subject.
8. Pupils should use your webcam and microphone to engage with lessons as fully as possible. The most effective learning happens when teachers can adjust their lessons using feedback from the pupils in the class. In the best lessons, pupils will have their cameras on, they will be concentrating and responding when asked to, using their Chromebook microphones. However, if you are uncomfortable about having your camera on, or answering questions online there is no expectation for you to do so. But, please let your teachers know this is the case.
9. Pupils should abide by the “Acceptable Use Of School Internet and Digital Devices – Pupil Agreement”

Junior School

1. Pupils should check in with their class teacher on Google Classroom between 8:30 and 9am. This will enable pupils to prepare for the school day, ask questions and keep the structure of the school day.
2. Pupils should regularly check the Google Classrooms to see the information for each lesson, as well as other communication such as assemblies.
3. Pupils should submit work for marking and feedback via Google Classroom.
4. Pupils should use Google Classroom comments to communicate with their teachers and ask questions if they do not understand.
5. If taking part in a Google Meet pupils must be dressed in an appropriate manner even if their webcam is turned off. Live Meets will be recorded.
6. Pupils should stay on the Meet until the teacher has finished the lesson.
7. Pupils should abide by the “Nursery, Infant and Junior Internet Use – Parent/Pupil Agreement”

Nursery and Infants

1. Pupils should join the Meet at 9.00am each morning for a mini workout with a member staff from the Nursery and Infants or an exercise class set by the class teacher. 
2. Pupils should join their class teacher, or a member of staff from their class bubble, for form time and a live lesson at 9.30 am.
3. On average, pupils will be invited to three live lessons a day which will vary in length depending on the age of the child and the content of the lesson. The bespoke planning grid for each class will have more details.

Parents should encourage and support their child’s/children’s work including: finding an appropriate place to work, checking that set work is completed by the end of each day and ensuring that the normal school timetable for the day is followed.

Parents should contact the school office as soon as possible to let the school know the details of any absences/illnesses, especially information related to Coronavirus symptoms and testing.

Parents should contact the school office / class teacher / form tutor / Head of Year if there are any concerns.

In the senior school if your child is using a device other than their school-managed Chromebook, they should ensure that their child logs into their Google Account in the browser. This will enable teachers to monitor their progress more closely using GoGuardian during the lessons.

Nursery and Infants class teachers will send a detailed planning grid for the week ahead to parents on a Sunday evening. We ask that parents look at this grid and take particular note of what resources are needed each day for the children and what time they are expected to be in live lessons. Parents will also receive a work pack for their children which contains a variety of resources that the children will need to access their daily lessons.

Registers are taken at the beginning of each school day during registration. Automatic registers are generated when GoGuardian or Google Meet are used.

Class teachers will pick up on anyone who has not been regularly completing work. This will include logging concerns in the usual way, sending a private message to the pupil on Google Classroom, emailing the pupil, and/or calling parents where necessary.

Heads of year will work closely with pupils of concern in multiple subjects and closely oversee that they are completing their work.

Where individual pupils need to self-isolate but the majority of their peer group remains in school, how remote education is provided may differ from the approach for whole groups. This is due to the challenges of teaching pupils both at home and in school.

As soon as teachers become aware that a pupil is self-isolating resources for each lesson will be shared via Google Classroom. Pupils should follow their usual timetable and regularly check Google Classroom and their school email accounts. Some classes may also offer live Google Meets. However, in these instances, where the focus of the teacher is necessarily on the pupils in the classroom for whom they have a duty of care, alternative, asynchronous approaches may be more effective.

Covid related absences

The school keeps a Covid related absences spreadsheet updated (this is a continual process). Staff need to check the spreadsheet at least daily in order to see if any of the pupils they teach that day are missing lessons.

For these pupils, the expectation is that staff use their professional judgement to determine the best approach to maximise the home learning experience if they are well enough to complete it. Slides presentations and other learning materials will be added to Classroom with instructions for the tasks that need to be completed. In addition, teachers will use a variety of different strategies over the period of absence:

• A full live lesson via Google Meet

• Part of the lesson live e.g. the introduction, key modelling activity, going through the answers.

• Tasks such as worksheets, quizzes, independent research, online courses set via Classroom.

• Recorded lessons or part lessons i.e. sections of the lesson recorded, perhaps using Screencastify and posted to Classroom.

• Pre-recorded lessons or part lessons.

Non-Covid related absences

There is no expectation for live lessons for pupils who are absent for non-covid reasons. Pupils are expected to catch up on the work that they have missed. Work can be set via Google Classroom to make the catch-up process easier. For extended absences, work may also be left at reception or sent via Classroom.