Communicating with parents about remote learning

The current teaching arrangements are far from ideal. One of the challenges is creating new protocols for remote learning environments. In this case study, we have included a number of communications devised by different schools and designed to support parents to support their children, both academically and pastorally.

Example 1: Edmund Rice College

The development of a google site to support remote learning

Edmund Rice College has used the Google Sites software available through C2K to create a website to support staff, parents and pupils to navigate google sites.

https://sites.google.com/c2ken.net/sharing-learning/google-4-parents

For guidance on how to create a google site like this for your school, visit the C2k G Suite Support Site

'Making the transition from a physical to a virtual school is extremely challenging for the whole school community. Our shared learning website has made it much easier for parents, pupils and teachers. The site has enabled all our teachers to upskill themselves, so that they can continue to provide innovative and engaging learning experiences for our pupils. Our families have found it much easier to navigate Google Classroom and engage with their learning. Mr Kelly has done a phenomenal job in creating a platform that allows teachers to share good practice and support parents and pupils to continue their learning at home.' Paul Berne (Principal)

'Community is one of the most important factors in our school. The ERC sharing learning website has held the community together and been the vehicle for so many outstanding ideas from students, parents and staff in these challenging times.' Lee Kelly (Teacher)

"Our thanks to Edmund Rice College for providing the online workshop for parents on Google Classroom Digital learning. It has provided a clearer understanding of how the children access the online classroom material and importantly how the children’s work can be returned for assessing and marking by their teachers. The workshops also helped us as parents to understand how we can encourage and support the children using Google Classroom suite in continuing their learning in this unprecedented time." (Parent)

'Nothing can really replace for young people the real classroom experience of one to one teaching and the added social interaction of meeting and socialising with their friends. In this current climate as a parent working from home and trying to support home schooling for three children at different levels, two at Post Primary and one at Primary, having Google classroom for their education needs and communication with their school has been very invaluable." (Parent)

Example 2: Glengormley High School

A YouTube channel to support pupils and parents remotely

Example 4: Glengormley HS have created a YouTube channel with tutorials for pupils and parents to assist with using C2K tools. All teachers can create a YouTube channel connected to their C2K address.

"My big learning this time around centres on communication - with parents and pupils. Firstly, I have learned that parents need to be kept fully informed about every school related matter. Many of my parents are still working full-time on top of trying to balance supporting children at home, cooking, cleaning and everything else that is needed. They need a regular drip feed on information and fully appreciate this. Our Form Teachers make phone calls home regularly to every child and their parent and this has been appreciated.

Our quality and quantity of feedback to pupils has been most welcome from all pupils. They are delighted to get feedback (with a very fast turnaround) and this keeps them motivated and reduces anxiety."

Mr Richard Massey, Principal

"The hard copies have really helped our son, it's good for him to switch between screen and paper as he can lose concentration easy when using the same method all day. Due to us as parents both being key workers we are doing some of the work at night and on the weekends which isn't ideal but it's not because of the amount of work he is getting so we can't complain about that. Today he had a live class with Mrs Naughton and that was fantastic. We have had 2 nice and useful phone calls from his form teacher and we really appreciated that. For our son, the logistics of submitting work and keeping on top of emails etc. can be quite overwhelming but we are helping him with that."

A Grateful Parent, Glengormley High School

Example 3: St Patrick's Academy, Dungannon

Parent Webinar on Remote Learning

St Patrick's Academy, Dungannon have produced this webinar explaining their approach to remote learning and offered a follow-up Q&A session for parents to ensure appropriate levels of support for both parents and pupils.

"We have had lots of emails of thanks and every time, I lift the phone to parents, they refer to it and relay how informative they found it. We are seeing much higher levels of engagement with our communication tools. Parents are now pro-active and are contacting us to for help with registering with tools like guardian summary emails whereas previously, it was us contacting them and trying to encourage them to use these communication tools.

Subsequently, we are also finding parents are very supportive, more patient and more understanding of the pressures others are experiencing and the need for us, having the overview of everyone’s circumstances, to find a balance to make Distance Learning work for everyone.

The feedback from parents has been overwhelmingly positive. They appreciated having an insight into our planning and felt reassured that there was a strategic structure in place and that we were monitoring progress and communicating this with them."

Mrs Danielle McKernan, teacher

Example 4: Crumlin Integrated College

An infographic for a 'virtual classroom charter'

Crumlin Integrated College use this infographic (sourced on twitter, detailed below) to summarise the key rules and principles for engaging with remote learning. They have also devised a clear protocol so everyone knows what to expect during remote learning, and attendance records for remote learning to manage any difficulties pupils may have accessing their lessons.

“COVID has challenged many schools and colleges, but particularly in regard to meeting the demands and need for successful remote learning. Like many schools in Lockdown #1 we were not where we wished to be, however we have expedited our planned ICT development with a personal iPad for all Year 8 pupils, training staff and pupils in the use of a virtual learning platform (MS Teams) and embedded this into our revised Learning and Teaching Policy. In September we carried out a Return to Education Survey with parents, pupils and staff and I am pleased that we have actioned quite a lot of the ideas and suggestions gleamed from this reflective practice. The College is now effectively delivering lessons in a ‘live format’ and through assignment tasks. Pupil engagement is sitting at around 76% across all year groups and robust assessment is being carried out to assess pupil learning.

I am amazed at the developments we have made in such a short period of time. It is a credit to our staff, pupils and parents who have all embraced this new culture and approach to ensure our pupils continue to avail of the high quality learning they are entitled to. Again, staff have ‘gone the extra mile’ for our students, and particular thanks must be expressed to Mrs Dawn Beattie and Mrs Sarah McEvoy for leading the training of staff, pupils and parents and the developments in our blended learning approach. which creates the continuity required during the remote learning period.”

Mr Niall O’ Hara, Principal

This infographic was designed by Lyndsey Balfe @lyndseybalfe and kindly shared on twitter

Monitoring Pupil Engagement January 2021.docx

Pupil Remote Learning Attendance SAMPLE.docx

Pupil Remote Learning Attendance BLANK TEMPLATE.docx

Example 5: Antrim Grammar School

Maximising the use of existing platforms to communicate with the wider school community

'In response to the current situation, we decided to create guides to support our parents, pupils and staff. In addition to the written guides, we felt it was beneficial to create videos to support the key elements of teaching and learning highlighted within these guides as this presented the information in a different way and they could be viewed on demand when required.

We use our website to house the guidance for parents and pupils but didn’t feel this was the best place for staff, so we created a new Staff Intranet to facilitate staff communication and access to information. This has been received very positively by staff. This continues to grow as we add more content to it every week.'

Ms Lisa Campbell-Nesbitt, Teacher

School website links:

https://www.antrimgrammar.org/Education-Restart/

https://www.antrimgrammar.org/Learning-from-Home/

Antrim Grammar has set up the staff intranet through a shared google drive with access to documents and videos to support them in setting up remote learning.

A perspective from outside Northern Ireland

Example 6: Ysgol Maesydderwen, Wales

Using Adobe Spark to make presentations for pupils and parents

Ysgol Maesydderwen is an 11-18 secondary school in Ystradgynlais, at the southern tip of Powys local authority in Wales. There are around 500 pupils who attend from the surrounding areas, which are a mixture of rural and former industrial mining villages. The school's mission statement is "Working Together, Achieving More" and this philosophy is at the heart of its approach to delivering the best possible education to learners and working effectively with families.

Throughout the current period of school closures, the school has realised that it is hugely important to communicate with both pupils and parents in a variety of ways. Of course, we send out the usual letters and social media messages however, we have also started to use video as an alternative way of communication. It is important to use language that people understand. Clear messaging between home and school has certainly helped pupils and parents to work effectively with the school in challenging circumstances.

Welsh Government give all schools Wales access to Adobe Spark via the Hwb platform. This particular tool has been invaluable, allowing us to produce material which is both informative and engaging for pupils and parents. Here are a couple of exams of how we communicate with learners and parents when they are working from home:

School Assembly

Returning to School After Lockdown 1

Home Learning January 2021

This information has been kindly shared by Deputy Headmaster of the school, Matthew Jones

Google Sites

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