"Keeping healthy in mind and body"
We are now a week into Home Learning. Thank you to those of you who have been in touch with feedback. We feel we now have a set of working practices that provide stability, consistency and support for students whilst being flexible and sensitive to current family circumstances.
• Staff will outline the learning tasks for the upcoming week. In a few cases tasks may take longer than a week, particularly for more creative subjects.
• Deadlines for the completion of work will be clearly communicated, so students can manage their time effectively.
• Teachers will hold a “roll call” at the start of every timetabled lesson. This is to highlight that they are on line and accessible for students. Student do not have to join the roll call, but we have found this is often a very supportive activity.
• Students can organise their learning to best suit family life. We understand families have to find their own way through this and create their own routines.
• Teachers are only available to students during timetabled lesson. Teachers have families too, they are required to manage home life along with the needs of hundreds of students, and we want them to have quality time, offline, away from work
each day.
• Please note during the Easter break classrooms will not be monitored by staff. We will of course continue to review and adapt.
There are over 100 teachers engaging with approximately 1000 students, all of whom are juggling family life. We are really proud and impressed with everyone, it is not easy but together we have made rapid progress with Home Learning and in many cases we are seeing young people not only survive, but flourish. Whilst our teachers have been developing resources and their working practices, our pastoral teams have been developing support systems.
• Progress Zone staff, Student Managers are reaching out to those students who require more support to engage with learning.
• The Sixth Form team are hard at work liaising with universities, ringing sixth form students and making plans for current Y11 students.
• The Year Nine team are preparing to contact students about their options.
• The Head of Year are monitoring engagement across the school with a view of coordinating support and celebrating success.
We have had a number of requests from families about how they can best support young people at home with their learning. To this end we have created a Home Learning page on our web site; under the “parents” tab.
On this page we will post advice and guidance along with a few “how to” videos and a FAQ section. The intention is that this will become a useful hub, even when we return to “normal”.
In the meantime, keep doing what you are doing, help your children be organised, encourage them to complete tasks and seek help from their peers and teachers, but most of all manage their stress (and yours), when all is said and done this is about “keeping healthy in mind and body”.
If parents/carers need to contact teachers, pastoral leaders, subject leaders or members of the senior leadership team please do so via snhsenquiries@sch.im. Please be understanding if a reply takes longer than normal.