Remote education provision: information for parents 

This information is intended to provide clarity and transparency to students and parents or carers about what to expect from remote education if local restrictions require entire cohorts (or bubbles) to remain at home. 

In the event of a local outbreak, the PHE health protection team or local authority may advise a school to fully or partially close temporarily to help control transmission.

Queen Elizabeth’s Girls’ School has a contingency plan for this eventuality. This may involve a return to remaining open only for vulnerable children and the children of critical workers and providing remote education for all other students, or it may involve remote education for certain year groups for a period of time. 

For details of what to expect where individual pupils are self-isolating, please see the final section of this page. 

The remote curriculum: what is taught to students at home 

At Queen Elizabeth’s Girls’ School our ultimate aim is to try to follow the intended curriculum whether students are in school, working at home, or a combination of the two. Teachers will deliver live lessons using Google Classroom where possible.  Students will also be set tasks to develop their independent learning skills.  Support and feedback will be available from teachers. 

A student’s first day or two of being educated remotely might look different from our standard approach, while we take all necessary actions to prepare for a longer period of remote teaching. 

What should my child expect from immediate remote education during the first day or two of students being sent home? 

Our remote education platform is Google Classroom.  Students can expect lessons to run according to their normal school timetable.  It is possible that during the first day or two that not every lesson will be a live lesson, whilst arrangements are being made by teachers.   

Following the first few days of remote education, will my child be taught broadly the same curriculum as they would if they were in school? 

We teach the same curriculum remotely as we do in school wherever possible and appropriate. However, we have needed to make some adaptations in some subjects. For example, in PE lessons, students may be set a series of challenges to develop their personal fitness. In practical subjects such as music, art or drama, work set may be a combination of practical work (where possible) and theory work.

Remote teaching and study time each day 

How long can I expect work set by the school to take my child each day? 
We expect that remote education (including remote teaching and independent work) will take students 5 hours each day.  This is in line with the number of lessons they would normally have in school.

Accessing remote education 
How will my child access any online remote education you are providing? 

All students will access remote education through the Google Classroom.

If my child does not have digital or online access at home, how will you support them to access remote education? 
We recognise that some pupils may not have suitable online access at home. We take the following approaches to support those pupils to access remote education: 

• If you do not have access to a device to complete remote learning effectively, you fall into the category of educationally vulnerable and should attend school as normal, where you will have the same access to live lessons.

• If there is an issue with access to a device to complete remote education, please let us know immediately by emailing the appropriate Head of Year

• We will do everything we can to support remote education and have a number of devices that we may be able to loan as well as helping to resolve any issues with connecting to the internet.

• We recognise that some students may only be able to take part in lessons on a device with a small screen, such as a mobile phone. We are happy for students to complete any work set on paper instead of on a computer if needed.

• If students are completing remote education on paper rather than a computer they can always upload a photo of their work. Where this is not possible, we will work with you to find a solution.

How will my child be taught remotely? 
We use a combination of the following approaches to teach pupils remotely. When teaching students remotely we are:

• providing frequent, clear video explanations of new content, delivered by a teacher in the school or through high-quality curriculum resources or videos.

• setting assignments so that students have meaningful and ambitious work each day in a number of different subjects.

• teaching a planned and well-sequenced curriculum so that knowledge and skills are built incrementally, with a good level of clarity about what is intended to be taught and practised in each subject.

• gauging how well students are progressing through the curriculum, using questions and other suitable tasks.

• enabling teachers to adjust the pace or difficulty of what is being taught in response to questions or assessments, including, where necessary, revising material or simplifying explanations to ensure students’ understanding.

• planning a programme that is of equivalent length to the core teaching students would receive in school, ideally including daily contact with teachers.

Last update January 2021