152 responses from pupils and parents so far, thank you!

Thank you for your emails and responses to the survey, its been lovely to read your many positive and supportive messages.

3 days in to this new way of working, the majority of children have taken part in our online sessions and completed their learning.

In the survey you told us

• that the video lessons from Fielding teachers and video calls help children learn the most;
• children enjoy Storytime and having the opportunity to talk with their teachers and friends; 
• that the timetable and pages in the Class Notebook help children (and their parents!) get organised.

Many of you like the structure of the day and appreciate the hard work and effort put in by Fielding staff. 

Thank you for your many comments on what might make the learning at home better for your child. Some parents are concerned about the amount of work children are asked to complete. We are following the guidance produced by the Government on how much and what type of work should be set at each key stage. Please read Mr Dunmall's news article on this:

• Learning at home

Yesterday the Government guidelines were updated to include an increased expectation on the amount of home learning children in years 3, 4, 5 & 6 should be completing from 3 hours per day to 4 hours, those in younger age groups should be aiming for 3 hours per day. 

In most cases we aren't able to change the amount or type of learning set because we are following the expectations set for us by the Department for Education. There are however lots of things we can change and adapt.

We have asked our teachers to look at the learning they have planned through the eyes of a child.

This is what we plan to do for next week:

• thin out pages/sections in class notebooks to make them easier to navigate;
• teachers will not have any live sessions after 2pm on a Friday, this is so they can upload learning for the following week, to help families get organised;
• all links to video lesson and Storytime will be on  the class timetable - this should be the 'go to place' to find out what your child is learning;
• teachers will not timetable anything between 12 and 12.45 so that families at home can have family time together;
• PE  lessons will not have external links to other websites  to avoid double log in;
• PE/French/Music will be shorter lessons;
• teachers will add expectations  for what work should be completed and submitted (on the notebook page, or uploaded);
• teachers will write on each learning activity how feedback will be given - e.g 'we will discuss this in our feedback session', 'I will read and comment' 'no written work to be completed or submitted'; 
• where possible pupils in years 3, 4, 5 & 6 will work straight into the Notebook, those in years 1 & 2 will have some worksheets to download and work on, these can be printed;
• Storytime will be set up a separate channel in each team so it can easily be found (these are live events, so are automatically recorded and can be watched at another time if needed);
• where Oak Academy lessons are used, teachers will be clear on which activities need to be completed;
•  we recognise that in Year 5  too many activities for each lesson have been set,  we will reduce this;
• we are also looking at ways that some videos are linked, we know how frustrating it is when a link doesn't work - please bear with us while we find the best solution. 

The class timetables are a guide for your child to help structure their day. We know that this might not fit with other commitments you as a family have. Learning can take place at any time of the day, we do ask that it is completed on the same day so that teachers are able to give relevant feedback and that pupils attend all live feedback sessions. 

We know that repeated notifications popping up on teams are distracting and annoying, they also fill up the 'posts' timeline in a class team which make it difficult to find the information that is needed. Please remind your child that the 'posts' section is for questions about learning only. 

Thank you for working with us on this and for sending in your feedback, we will continue to ask for feedback in different ways throughout this closure period, don't forget you can always send us an email.