Milnthorpe Primary School

25th January 2020

Milnthorpe Primary School is committed to delivering the highest possible standard of remote education they can for their students.

We understand that a combination of different experiences for students is best. These experiences include pre recorded lessons, set tasks to be done away from the computer screen, commercially produced material and live lessons, to name but a few.

This approach is supported by the latest Ofsted report into remote learning which takes pains to bust several myths, including the emphasis on live lessons:

“Live lessons aren’t always best

Some think that a live lesson is the ‘gold standard’ of remote education. This isn’t necessarily the case. Live lessons have a lot of advantages. They can make curriculum alignment easier, and can keep pupils’ attention, not least as the teacher has more control over the learning environment. But live lessons are not always more effective than asynchronous approaches.” ( Ofsted : What’s Working Well in Remote Education” January 11 2021)

Media reporting, and statements in Westminster that suggest anything other than live lessons is not good enough, have led to some misunderstanding of what good remote provision is and schools are having to deal with a range of views on this from their communities, especially, but not exclusively, around the issue of live lessons.

It is important for parents to understand that every school is dealing with it's own unique context and this makes comparisons between schools unhelpful. Factors affecting the combination of remote learning experiences a school can provide include:

• the numbers of children attending school each day – this ranges from single figures to 200+ depending on levels of vulnerability, critical worker numbers and school capacity. In some schools staff can be wholly focussed on remote provision, in others teachers are having to supervise students in school for substantial parts of their working week.
• the digital access issues in the community – some areas have better connectivity and less digital poverty than others. Schools with higher levels of digital poverty cannot rely on live lessons to the same extent as schools with digitally advantaged students.
• the capacity of staff which can vary from school to school based on health issues, caring responsibilities and the availability of childcare for younger children

Should parents have any concerns about the provision on offer, they must contact the school to discuss them, but it is important to avoid making comparisons with other schools whose contexts will be quite different.

Please note school will be open for Key Workers and vulnerable children until further notice. Please email admin@milnthorpe.cumbria.sch.uk if you require a place with details of the times and days you require.

Milnthorpe Primary School is in receipt of the Covid Catch-up Premium.

The additional funding is being used to employ additional teaching assistant support in school.

Additional support has been introduced into Year 6, on a full-time basis, to provide support, where identified, to allow pupils to catch up, as a result of missing education during the first lockdown.

Additional support has been introduced into Year 4 for two full days per week, to support children identified as having regressed during the lockdown period.

The introduction of the additional support has allowed further opportunities for existing teaching assistant staff to support identified groups of children, specifically in Year 1, Year 5 and Year 3 over and above their normal support commitments.

In addition to the above measures, we have introduced a time table variation in Key Stage 2, whereby the morning session has been increased by half an hour – this additional half an hour has been timetabled in each class to address missing curriculum objectives from the previous year. Also, as a result of the inability to have whole school assemblies there has been some capacity to create additional time dedicated to catch-up.

The school has also introduced an earlier opening time over a longer period of time. i.e. opening school at 8:40am and allowing children to arrive up until 9:05am. This additional time has allowed focused early work to support catch up primarily on key Maths and English objectives.

Pupils in school have regular assessment (half-termly) and teachers discuss every child’s progress, also half termly, with the Head teacher, to identify children requiring additional support in order to catch up. These children are then monitored to ensure gap closure is attained.

Please contact Mr Hyde on 015395 62344 with any questions or queries.

We are currently following the advice and guidance from the government via Public Health England and taking extra measures in school.

Click on the link for the latest government response:  https://www.gov.uk/government/topical-events/coronavirus-covid-19-uk-government-response

Click on the document below for the latest CCC guidance for parents and carers for the return to school in the Autumn Term.

If your child has a temperature and a persistent cough, please keep them at home and arrange a Covid test.

Please call Mr Hyde on 015395 62344, if your child is unwell and you are unsure whether they should attend school