Swalwell Primary School
Working together, learning together
Welcome
Approach
Home Learning Approach
As we once again find ourselves in challenging times as a result of a national lockdown, at Swalwell we aim to provide the highest quality remote education to support all of our wonderful children, families and school community.
As with everything we do at Swalwell, supporting and developing every child is at the core of our home learning approach. We aim to provide a fully inclusive remote education curriculum that mirrors our everyday practice in school. Our approach is designed to challenge our children in their understandings and application of learning to the ever-changing world around them whilst ensuring the are supported to achieve success.
Our aim is for all of our children to continue to learn, flourish and thrive in what are extremely difficult circumstances. Our curriculum is designed to help our children continue to learn whilst understanding the changes in the world around them and most of all continue to be socially, emotionally and physically happy and healthy.
All of our remote education resources are provided through our Tapestry platform to allow maximum access for both parents and children alike. This platform allows us to effectively communicate and support learning whilst also celebrating the fantastic achievements of our children just as we would at school.
Please click this link to view our remote learning policy –
This leaflet (Distance Learning support leaflet) was created by the Primary Behaviour Support Service for parents with advice for supporting your child whilst learning at home.
Online Learning Tools
We use a variety of online tools which our children can access in school and at home. All of the online programmes we use can be used on a smart phone, laptop/PC or a tablet.
Tapestry is a website we use throughout the school which builds a special record of your child’s experiences, development and learning journey. Teachers and other school staff can upload photos, videos and diary entries for you to view online and see your child’s progress and how much fun they’re having, whilst also uploading your own comments and any media you would like to share. The Tapestry platform allows these memories to be kept as a permanent record of each child’s unique journey.
Parents/carers must give school consent to use Tapestry, along with your preferred email. Once we have your consent, you will receive an email with instructions on how to set up your account. Each child has their own learning journal, which can only be seen and added to by school staff (who work with your child), SLT and linked relatives to that child. All information held on Tapestry is stored securely and can be downloaded/shared as required.
In the event of a school closure, Tapestry will be used for remote learning. School staff can upload online lessons and activities for your child.
Reading plus delivers a personalised intervention to develop your child’s silent reading proficiency and will help them grow into confident, lifelong readers. Children in year 4, 5 and 6 will have our school’s site code along with their own username and password. School staff regularly monitor your child’s progress on Reading Plus and there will be opportunities for your child to receive special Reading Plus awards.
Throughout the school, our children enjoy using EdShed. Education Shed is where a child can work on their spellings, PAG (punctuation and grammar) and maths skills. Children can play games, take part in quizzes and complete tasks set by their Class Teacher. Each child has their own username and password.
If your child is in Key Stage 2, your Class Teacher may set your child work/homework through Conquer Maths. Each child (if they haven’t already) will be given a username and password. Once logged on, you can click on ‘Tasks’ to see any active lessons that the Class Teacher has set, the date they were set and the date they should be completed by. When you click on a task, there will be online lessons with videos and questions to answer. Children can redo tasks to practise and improve their score.
If your child has misses a task’s deadline, they can still complete it late by clicking on ‘Overdue Tasks’.
All year groups can access Oxford Owl at home and login to gain access to a range of Oxford Reading Tree books based on the bands read in class. These books support with fluency and pace of reading as well as offering opportunity to answer simple retrieval questions to develop comprehensive understanding. To log in, click on ‘my class login’ and enter your class name and password.
Children receiving Phonics in school can access Oxford Owl at home and gain access to the Floppy Phonics books phonics lessons are based around. They offer opportunities to develop phoneme recognition, fluency and pace when reading whilst enriching vocabulary. There are also interactive games to improve spelling application linked to each phoneme. To log in, click on ‘my class login’ and enter your class name and password.
Purple Mash is another Programme which we use throughout the school. It is a great tool which can help develop your child’s IT skills including coding, email and online safety. Children have their own usernames and passwords which they need to log on.
How school can support your child’s home learning
We have a limited number of laptops in school to support home learning. Please contact school if you don’t have any devices at home and feel like loaning a device from school would be useful for you.
Access to internet should not be a barrier to home learning. Homes that do not currently have Wi-Fi can be supported in a number of ways.
- Free BT Wi-Fi if you have a BT landline
- Free mobile data increases (selected networks, see below):
- Three (pay as you go and pay monthly)
- Smarty (pay as you go and pay monthly)
- Virgin Mobile (pay monthly only)
- EE (pay as you go and pay monthly)
- Tesco Mobile (pay monthly only)
- Sky Mobile (pay monthly only)
- O2 ( pay as you go and pay monthly)
All data requests and free BT Wi-Fi requests must be requested by school
We also have a number of free sim cards with data should none of the above options be suitable. We may also be able to obtain a 4G router for your home, however these are very limited. School can provide full instructions how to tether internet from your mobile phone to a laptop/device for the purpose of home learning.
Please contact us at school and we will be happy to help.