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Netherthorpe School

Netherthorpe
School

Update 7th July

Dear Parent/ Carer

Thank you so much for the support that you have shown to both the school and your child(ren) with their home learning since our closure.

As we have indicated in our previous updates, this has been a rapid learning curve for us all and we have continued to work hard to evaluate and improve our virtual offer.

We have valued and listened to the feedback we have received, from both parents and students, regarding the setting of work and feedback and increased the amount of ‘pre-recorded’ lessons on offer.

As we prepared our staff to start to deliver more live lessons online, we were informed by both Derbyshire and the DfE that the platform we were hoping to use was no longer deemed secure and safe for delivery. This was extremely frustrating but we were determined to find a solution, which would enable us to deliver ‘live’ lessons in the event of any future school closures. We want to ensure that our students and staff could move seamlessly between classroom based and remote learning without any wasted learning time.

As I am sure you appreciate, sourcing the best platform, following this initial hurdle, takes time particularly when trying to train staff remotely in the use of new IT systems. 

I am pleased to inform you that following an initial trial with a small number of classes, we have now added Microsoft teams to all student accounts.

We are now ready to engage in the next phase of our training programme, which will be rolled out whole school in September to allow us to offer blended learning as and when required.

As part of this programme, a number of staff from across all curriculum areas will be conducting further trials into the use of Microsoft teams over the next two weeks and as such, your child(ren) may be invited to attend a live event. These events will be recorded by the teacher, which will allow any student in that class/team to access this at any time, even if they are unable to be online for the live event.

If your child is in a class that has been chosen to conduct a ‘live’ lesson trial, they will receive notification and further instructions through the Show My Homework (Satchel) platform in advance of the event.

To ensure that safeguarding is a priority, your child will not be sharing their screen with the teacher and other students, they will be able to hear (and in some cases) see the teacher and use a question and answer option once in class. (Please see the Guidance attached and expectations for using Microsoft Teams attached)

Thank you once again for your support, if you would like to email me with any feedback you are very welcome.

Helen McVicar

Deputy Headteacher

Get in touch

marker

Ralph Road, Staveley, Chesterfield, Derbyshire, S43 3PU

phone

01246 472220