At

Our Lady’s R.C. Primary School in Dundee, the prospect of delivering remote learning was a little frightening for some of us, but with a positive mindset and some sharing of skills and knowledge, our staff have risen to the challenge!

Most class teachers have opted to set up a Microsoft Team which allows them to have daily contact with their learners through chat and the uploading of files/tasks/activities for the day. Teams also allows the children to share what they have been working on with their teacher and the rest of their classmates, as well as receiving some feedback on their efforts from all participants.

Within teams, some teachers have set up instructional videos to help their learners navigate through the different sections of Teams, whilst others have contained their learners to using just the files and general sections. One of our teachers has even set up a ‘Playground’ channel where the children can chat and have fun with each other!

Other teachers have chosen to set up Twitter accounts specifically for their classes onto which they upload tasks and activities each day. This is a super platform for the children to share their learning and experiences. We can also retweet this to our whole school account, which allows our whole school family to share the learning and achievements.

Two teachers have opted to use a GLOW Group which the children are loving. They can share their tasks and fun things they have been doing throughout the day, as well as chatting with their classmates.

Regardless of the platform chosen, the big message is that the children are receiving some form of learning via their teacher and contact is being maintained. Children are being challenged daily with Literacy, Numeracy and H&WB tasks being uploaded, including links to a range of website and videos. There has also been a big emphasis on personal and research- based projects which the children are enjoying.

One very important message that Our Lady’s is trying to convey is that of family learning; exploring things together, completing tasks together, completing research together.

As well as our class platforms, we have enhanced our use of Twitter through our school account to connect with our families. Through this, we have been able to direct parents to resources/sources of support. This has tied in nicely with our efforts to create small resources ‘banks’ within our community, where we are providing jotters, pencils and other learning materials to support our learners during this time. Connecting via social media has allowed us to receive updates on demand and respond to this by replenishing when required.

In addition, we have updated and developed our school website to keep our current and future families informed and up to date on all aspects of our school and community. In particular, we have developed a support hub on the website, with Covid updates, support channels and materials / resources to support home learning. The learning resources / links area has been designed particularly for families looking for extra activities above the set learning. Our families have found it useful to find all this information in one place. We Tweet when we add updates / new information to the website.

It is our hope that digital learning methods and platforms will allow us to continue with maintaining contact and some form of learning with our families until we can all be together again.