Blended Learning Parent Consultation February 2021
Thank you so much for the responses to the Blended Learning Parent Consultation just before the half term break. We received completed questionnaires for 214 children across our school. Hearing from so many families helped to give us a good picture of what families feel has worked well and not so well for our children during the period of national lockdown since January 5th, so thank you if you took the time to share your views.
Blended Learning Parent Consultation Responses
There was a fairly even split of responses across school from those families whose children had been offered a school place and those families whose children had been working at home since Janaury 5th. It was clear that the experience of this lockdown has been very different for children and families depending on whether:
- Children had a place in school since January 6th
- Children had an adult at home not working and able to support their learning
- Children had older, younger or no siblings at home
General points
- 94% of responses said children had engaged in some way with the blended learning.
- 67% said their children had enjoyed working from home for at least some of the time.
- 90% of responses said that the work from school had been located easily. Nobody said they had not located work.
- 70% of responses thought the amount of work set was ‘just right.’ (25% thought too much work was set, 5% thought too little work was set.)
- 91% of responses thought the suggested timetable was useful.
Teacher Feedback
- 82% of responses thought feedback provided motivated children to further their learning.
- 76% of responses thought the teacher feedback addressed misconceptions and helped their children to see where they had gone wrong.
- 73% of responses thought the teacher feedback helped their children to see what to do next to extend their learning
Loom Videos and Live Online Meetings
- 88% of responses thought the Loom videos from staff were useful to help their children feel more connected to school.
- 96% of responses would welcome live online meetings for their children’s class.
Mental Health and wellbeing
- 69% of responses thought their child’s mental health and wellbeing had been adversely impacted by the partial school closure. 15% thought their child’s mental health and wellbeing had not been adversely impacted by the partial school closure.
We were delighted to hear in 25 different responses that these families felt their children had become more independent, resilient (or other words to this effect) since January. Some families explained this as being enforced with their children having to ‘just get on with it’ as they were committed to working from home.
We have tried to take all of this feedback into account as we look forward with blended learning. The table below contains the key points from the detailed responses families offered in the consultation. We have already acted upon or are still considering how we can react to this feedback in our provision as we go forwards.
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Feedback point
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Response
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Families largely keen for live sessions to start. There were some misconceptions about the live sessions
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- The purpose of live sessions at Greasley Beauvale is initially for engagement and social catch-up sessions for our children that have been most isolated and working at home during lockdown.
- Attendance at any live meetings is optional.
- Live meetings scheduled at different times and days each week to attempt to support those families with working commitments to be able to take part.
- Meetings have been scheduled so that they don’t overlap with other classes in school to prevent siblings in the same household vying for access to devices.
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Children struggling to complete whole day of learning for a variety of reasons
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- We know that families have all kinds of different logistical challenges to overcome. Through our school communications, we have tried to get across the point that whilst it is important to attempt all the learning shared on Class Dojo or Tapestry, doing your best is good enough.
- In school we sometimes ask children to stop working before they have completed a piece of work. The same should be true at home. If children have spent the suggested amount time on a lesson, it is find for them to can stop and move on.
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Suggested timetable each day is too repetitive
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- The timetable is deliberately repetitive in order to develop routine and mimic the structure of the usual school day. Although we understand the repetitive nature may seem boring, it is necessary and how schools operate on a day-to-day basis as we know children thrive on routine.
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Children prefer and are more actively engaged in lessons ‘Loomed’ by class teacher in comparison to Oak National and White Rose
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- Due to the number of children, we are teaching in school it is not possible for the teacher to record every lesson.
- We hope that the live teacher sessions on Teams have actively encouraged engagement for children missing contact and lessons from their usual teacher.
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All, or almost all, work set is screen based. More creative projects (like in first lockdown) were requested
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- We discussed the reliance on screens and the success of the Do Something Different Day for Children’s mental health and wellbeing week.
- If school were to stay closed for most pupils for any longer, we would have looked at this further. It is difficult to provide instruction for new learning without the reliance on a screen to provide input.
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Mixed messages about when/how/ where to collect worksheet packs particularly from year groups with job share teachers
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- We changed this process in early January. We realised that sending families for all classes across school to the office was creating a bottleneck and potential crowds collecting work.
- We believe the new process of meeting the class teacher at the usual start or end time for that class has been working efficiently for the past few weeks. Sorry for any confusion during the period of transition.
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Liked having lesson/timetable the night day before – but would prefer to have weekly rather than daily
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- Providing the daily timetable the night before was a key change we made following parent feedback in the autumn term.
- It is difficult for teachers to provide learning details for all lessons a week in advance. We talked about whether we could share the maths lessons and worksheets in advance and agreed this should be possible, should it be needed in the future.
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Technicalities of language difficult for parents to reinforce at home – bar models / dienes / adverbials split digraphs etc.
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- This is not just an issue during periods of school closure; it has been emphasised during lockdown as families have become more involved in facilitating children’s learning.
- Subject leaders to consider how key vocabulary and glossaries of language for learning can be shared with families in the future.
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- More rewards / positive feedback necessary to motivate and encourage children
- Children received positive feedback for work that didn’t deserve this.
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- The aim of feedback to children from year group adults in school has been to encourage, motivate and extend children’s learning. We recognise that many children have been finding learning from home difficult so we have deliberately been positive to encourage children to keep going. We can see how praise and encouragement may sometimes have seemed undeserved and have discussed using different processes to give feedback that might prevent this.
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Blended Learning Parent Consultation December 2020
223 children’s families were consulted due to being impacted by periods of bubble closure or self-isolation. Responses were received for 133 families.
- 86% of responses were from families where a whole class bubble was isolating.
- 93% of responses said they found Maths and English lesson videos easy to find.
- 84% of responses said their children completed blended learning lessons.
- 88% of families said they found the daily timetable of lessons useful posted daily on Class Dojo.
- 84% of families said they found the Loomed videos from the class teacher useful.
- 96% of families said the work provided by school had been easy to follow.
- 90% of families said their child’s work had been posted to the Class Dojo portfolio and that they had received feedback about the work.
The key action that we made from the detailed feedback received in December 2020, was to change when we asked class teacher to post work to children. Several families said it would help them to plan by having the work the night before it was due rather than the morning it was due.