Every child has a personalised timetable of live lessons that are delivered through Microsoft Teams. In addition to live lessons, your child will be set ‘Assignments’ which are work they can complete independently. Students in Y7-9 will also have optional projects or challenges they can complete for rewards.

Many of our students will also have 1 to 1 or small group intervention lessons for literacy, numeracy or other specific subjects.

We also expect all of our students to continue reading. Depending on their age, students will have access to Reading Eggspress or Common Lit. We have also launched ‘Reading Bingo’ to encourage students to regularly read for pleasure

Remote learning is difficult for any child, but there are several things you can do to help:

• Provide a quiet space, free from distractions where your child can work.
  • If you’re out during the day, consider removing temptation by disabling games consoles or mobile phones (if not needed for Teams).
  • If possible, clear a table or desk for your child to work at.
• Ensure your child has the equipment needed for live lessons:
  • A device that can run Teams, with video and audio.
  • Their 5 (pen, pencil, ruler / calculator / dictionary / planner / reading book)
  • Paper to write on.
• Use the provided timetable to discuss your child’s progress each day. Check that they are completing and submitting their assignments.
• Reinforce the importance of attending each session – two weeks is 50 hours of learning!

Please Note – If you wish to contact your child’s teacher to ask any questions, this should not be done in the chat function of a Microsoft Teams lesson. This chat is for students only. All queries should be sent to your child’s hub director.

We recognise that some pupils, for example some pupils with special educational needs and disa-bilities (SEND), may not be able to access remote education without support from adults at home. We acknowledge the difficulties this may place on families.

We will keep closely in contact with all our families to ensure that any concerns are understood. Where we can we will adjust our provision to make things easier and teachers will adjust live les-sons to ensure that students are well supported and their needs are met.

Students will receive regular feedback from their teachers. This might be verbally in live lessons or direct feedback to work submitted in lessons or for assignments. Students will also undertake regular mini assessments as part of their live lessons as they normally would in class.

Students can log into their Teams account using the link at the top of this page. Their login will be their school username, followed by @barrshill.coventry.sch.uk

e.g. j.smith would be j.smith@barrshill.coventry.sch.uk.

The password is the same one your child uses to log into school computers.

Parents of Year 7 students, you can find your child’s login details stuck into their planners.

Students will receive a call via teams when their live lesson begins. Before answering, they should consider the following:

• Do they have their 5?
• Are they in a quiet space where they won’t be interrupted?
• Is there anything in their background they wouldn’t want other people to see?
• Have they muted their microphone to avoid disturbing other students?

Assignments will be set by teachers, and should be submitted on time. You can see all of your child’s active assignments by clicking on the assignment tab of their Team.

Please send any Teams queries, including login issues to Helpdesk@barrshill.coventry.sch.uk

Each live lesson will begin with some basic expectations to keep all of our students and staff safe. You may wish to read the below with your child ahead of their first lesson to ensure they are ready.

• Please ensure your background is blurred and your mic is switched off until you need to ask a question/respond. As with any lesson, usual PRIDE standards are expected, but in this new learning environment, you may have to be extra patient with staff and other students, as we all work together to make this effective learning time. A few specifics:
• Please note the IT Acceptable Use Policy applies, as in school, and has been posted on the website, emailed out to students and parents.
• Please dress appropriately.
• You can choose not to turn “video” on if you feel more comfortable with audio only.
• Respect other people’s consent and privacy, don’t record, share or criticise.
• Try to make sure no one else is in the background of your video or anyone’s personal information is on show.
• Staff and students will follow the normal safeguarding policies, so if anyone has a concern, staff will share it with the safeguarding team so that support can be put in place. Please bear in mind staff will record sessions, but we would ask students not to use this feature please.

There will likely be a short delay at times, depending on internet loads, so try not to talk over people where possible.

Our safeguarding number for the Virtual School is  077 24 046 375.