No.45: Remote learning
Contents
Overview of remote learning
Education settings have been required to change and adapt their way of teaching children who are not accessing face to face learning during the Covid Pandemic. The guidance within this document should be applied to any situation where remote teaching and/ or meetings with children are required and includes; webinars, live lessons, pre-recorded sessions, as well as how the education settings are providing their pupils with pastoral and welfare support. Such support may include counselling, mentoring or other 1:1 or group work.
At present, (January 2022) there is no statutory guidance regarding remote learning and safeguarding so each individual education setting must undertake their own risk assessment to identify any associated risks and develop a clear plan of action to mitigate risks identified.
Teaching sessions
Every education setting will by now have decided how they are going to provide remote learning session to their pupils. This may be in the form of pre-recorded webinar sessions which allows flexibility for pupils and parents/carers to access the remote learning. Some settings may have decided to offer live streaming sessions which allow pupils and staff to engage with each other. Some settings may have decided to offer a mixture of both.
There is a great deal of debate about the positive impact of live streaming as it enables interaction, communication and engagement between pupils and staff which can improve wellbeing. There is no clear answer about which platform for remote learning should be provided and so it is very much up to the individual settings to decide what is best for their staff and pupils.
All settings should consider the following things when completing a risk assessment:
Pre-recorded sessions / Webinars:
- Length of session – is there adequate breaks for pupils to have time away from the screen?
- How will engagement and attendance be monitored?
Live Streaming sessions:
- Are you asking pupils to have webcams on or off?
- Where possible, are sessions being delivered by two members of staff? If not, what additional safeguarding measures are in place?
- Are sessions being recorded? If the sessions are being recorded and pupils can be seen, do the school have consent from all parents? If sessions are being recorded, have you considered only recording the teaching PPT and staff’s screen? Speak to Data Protection Officer (DPO) for further advice and support.
Specific or targeted support
This specific support could be in the form of counselling, mentoring or other welfare and pastoral support. It is recognised that lockdowns have had a significant negative impact on children and young people’s mental health and wellbeing, therefore it is vital that welfare support continues wherever possible.
Settings need to consider the best way to provide this 1:1 support and a robust risk assessment would be the most appropriate way to identify the risks, as well as specify how to safeguard their pupils and staff. Settings should consider updating their lone working policy to reflect any changes to practice during this time.
The following things should be considered as part of the risk assessment:
- Is it appropriate for another member of staff to be present during the session?
- If the session is 1:1, is it appropriate to record the session? Do the setting have consent from parents (and pupil) to record the session?
- Is the school confident that parents/carers are aware of the session and when it is taking place? Have parents/carers been asked to be present in the home while the session is taking place or do the parents/carers need to be involved in the start and end of the session?
Other general points to consider
Have you introduced clear and explicit guidance for pupils, staff, parents and carers about the expectations for accessing remote learning?
For example:
- Appropriate clothing, e.g. pupils should not be in night clothes
- Location of devices used for remote learning. Is the pupil in a quiet place in the house where they can concentrate without distraction from siblings or other devices? If this location is in a bedroom, have parents been given guidance for example ensuring that the door is left open?
- Have staff been given explicit guidance about the location they will provide remote learning from? Where possible, is this location the school setting? If staff are providing remote learning from home, are they clear that they must not deliver this training from a bedroom?
- Are pupils and staff encouraged to review what is shown in the background of the live lesson? Is there inappropriate images in the background? Pupils should not be encouraged to use background filters as viewing a child’s environment could provide opportunities to identify safeguarding concerns.
- Have staff, pupils and parents/carers been given clear guidance around the use of professional language during live lessons?
- If pupils are using webcams and are visible during the live streaming, or the session is being recorded, have school gained consent in lines with GDPR? Are school confident that they can evidence consent for all pupils present.
- Are staff mindful of the amount of screen time the pupils are being asked to engage with? In a secondary settings with multiple teachers, are pupils being expected to engage with 5 hours of live lessons a day? Have appropriate breaks been provided to enable the pupil and staff to spend time away from the computer?
- Have staff considered how pupils can engage with each other socially, perhaps through a period of unstructured time at the end of some sessions?
- Are school staff confident about the safety of the online platform being used? Is the online platform age appropriate and secure?
- Can the education setting evidence that all staff have recently read and understood the staff code of conduct? This should include clear advice about expectations including; reporting concerns (including misunderstandings) and expectations regarding social media and being friends with pupils.
- Have staff been reminded about the expectations for logging contact with pupils and that they should only be contacting pupils during school hours.
- Are settings confident that all recruitment checks have been undertaken for the staff providing the remote learning sessions?
- Has the setting provided parents and carers with relevant online safety advice regarding how to keep their children safe online?
- Have staff been provided with CPD training regarding signs and indicators of abuse and how to report concerns via the ‘in house safeguarding procedure’ and how to report concerns to MASH (if appropriate). Staff should consider how signs and indicators of abuse may look when supporting pupils remotely.
- Does the education setting need to update their behaviour policy to reflection sanctions and discipline used during remote learning?