DfE offer guidance with Remote Education Good Practice Guide

We look at their latest guidance from the Department for Education, to help schools deliver and support their curriculum remotely.

In light of the current times and the situation schools are facing starting the Autumn term, the Government have been actively promoting and supporting remote education since the initial lockdown measures in late March.

‘The period since 23 March 2020 has been one of great innovation in remote education. Despite the challenges, remote education has made a significant contribution to enabling students to continue to learn and progress, and to mitigating any widening of the attainment gap for the disadvantaged.’ DfE - Remote Education Good Practice Guide

A number of schools have benefited from centralised funding to supply either Microsoft O365 or Google G Suite digital platforms to support remote learning via The Key for School Leaders site. There is an expectation that all schools will have the capacity to deliver remote education.

In the latest guidance, Remote Education Good Practice, the DfE focuses on approaches to the delivery of the curriculum, highlighting some of the following suggestions that could be employed to help drive a remote teaching and learning strategy:

• Teachers know what makes a good lesson, try and replicate that remotely, where possible i.e clear expectations, re-enforcement and application of new skills, feedback and progress
• Use of collaborative communication areas and groups for peer support
• Consider how school technology resources could be used in future to support pupils without sufficient remote facilities i.e loan equipment, re-purpose of old school resources or utilise Get help with technology programme
• Make sure learning platforms are populated and maintained from MIS systems
• Link other apps to platforms where there are gaps, ie Kahoot, Loom etc
• Create forms and quizzes to assess on the spot learning with rapid feedback.
• Make use of pre-recorded material so students can access their teacher at anytime
• Create links for guardians for visibility on child’s progress and at-home support
• Use these platforms for whole school experience i.e assemblies
• Use free external resources to limit workload ie links to YouTube videos, especially for practical work
• Subscribe to online commercial materials as a means of supporting existing or creating new schemes of work
• Use free certification routes to create digital leaders amongst your teaching staff to increase skill levels, confidence and adoption. Microsoft Innovative Educator or Google Educator Certification

The DfE promises further support for planning a sequenced curriculum that can be adapted for remote delivery, which will be published separately during the autumn term. We’ll let you know about that too when it comes out.

Adopting any of the above could make a difference in your school, and as always Computeam are here to help. We have a wealth of experience in delivering effective educational solutions into schools, so please do contact us if you need any further help or guidance.