Hengoed Primary School

Distance Learning Policy

As a staff we are committed to ensuring our children continue to learn at Hengoed Primary School. Whilst learning is important, the communities’ well-being is at the forefront. We understand that there may be times of illness, caring for the vulnerable and caring for other children within the home and this must be the priority for the community. However, we will endeavour to support our learners at this time and continue to learn and grow. Please keep in mind that this is new to all of us and we may have some teething problems.

What is Distance Learning?

Distance learning is where pupils cannot physically present at school. As children cannot access school to learn, their learning will take place online. It is important that children complete the work set.

This is something new for all of us; we will endeavour to improve the service as we all get used to it.

Work will be set by teachers using a learning platform e.g. Google Drive, Class Dojo.  These are websites children use regularly. Some are used by certain groups of children; so don’t worry if your child doesn’t know what they are. All the passwords you will need have been given to the children.

Teachers have created a bank of home learning tasks, ideas and resources. Some are in the form of worksheets or instructions on work to complete and others are instructions on where to access work.  You will not be required to print out any worksheets if you are unable to do so.  Worksheets will simply be used as a guide for presenting tasks.  Recording work on paper will be sufficient. 

Some activities will be completed online and teachers will be able to see it. Sometimes a task might ask the child to carry out an experiment; growing seeds, organise tins and packets according to weight, or drawing or making a model. These would need to be photographed and uploaded onto Class Dojo for the teachers to see. Teachers will be able to monitor children’s engagement in activities and their understanding.

Learners may be provided with a suggested timetable for the week to ensure that they are given routines in order to learn at home. Children thrive off routine and structure so this may help when learning at home. We understand that this cannot be followed at all times and may not at all in some instances and it is a suggested timetable.

There will be set work for the children to complete. These will be on Google Drive, hwb  or Class Dojo. You will also have access to the work in the Class Pages section on our website. This will give you a list of resources for further learning. Please note these are additional ideas, websites and videos that you child might like to explore. Please note that the distance learning activities are the prepared learning activities.

What is expected of pupils?

Each child will be issued with set pieces of work to complete each day. Their responses will be sent to the teacher via Dojo portfolio, who will mark their work. Please make sure that your children only send completed work .

All work will be on the child’s Google Drive or Class Dojo accounts or the website.

Expectations on Teachers

• All teachers will provide work for children to complete at home.
• Teachers will respond to pupils’ work where appropriate
• Teacher will try to match the work to your child’s abilities wherever possible, sometimes this will prove to be difficult as teachers often give additional support to pupils during a lesson.
• Teachers will be working from 9am to 3pm Monday to Thursday and 9am to 12pm on Friday. All teachers will take their PPA on Friday afternoons.
• Teacher will be completing professional learning task so will not always be able to respond immediately to pupils.

Suggested daily timetable