Plan for Online Learning from Jan 11th 2021
Dear Parent,
Happy New year to all of you and I hope that you are well and safe.
The purpose of this letter is to provide you with an outline of our plan for online learning from next Monday 11th Jan
As you are aware the Department of Education has instructed schools to remain closed for January. This is not ideal but, the good news is, we are in a good position to be able to provide for Distance learning. Luckily a lot of work was done with this earlier in the year to prepare for this scenario.
The outline of the Plan is as follows:
Monday is designated as a day of preparation for live online classes to begin from Tuesday Morning at 9pm. Over the weekend and on Monday students and are being asked to check and ensure that they have access to the google classrooms that have been set up by their teachers. A lot of preparation was done with the students in October for this so they should be familiar with this.
And on Monday students can come into school to pick up their books. The most efficient method is for the student to collect them personally. They must wear their mask, sanitise their hands at the front door and they can go to their desk to collect their books. There is no need to meet any staff member. The doors will be open. If the student cannot collect their books personally, please contact us beforehand and we can make an alternative arrangement. To prevent congregation of pupils we ask student to abide by the following time slots
- 1 & 2 year 10am to 12 noon
- 3 & TY year 12 to 2 pm
- 5th and 6th yr 2 to 4pm
Google Classroom: If students don’t have access to the google classroom for each subject then, they should email the teacher directly or the parent can email the school to highlight the issue. And it will be rectified as soon as possible.
Teachers can only accept and respond to emails from students that are sent from their @ourladysbelmullet.ie account, This is their school account and teacher and students are not allowed to communicate with one another through other personal email accounts.
ICT. Acceptable Use Policy
I will send you a copy of the ICT Acceptable Use Policy and it will be available on the school website. It is important for you and your child to read this document and to be familiar with the protocols around Distance Learning in particular. For online learning to be a success and for everyone’s protection it is vital that we are guided by this document.
Re: Online Learning
Teachers and SNA’s have met and have been asked to be ready for Online teaching from Tuesday morning. And they are available to be contacted on Monday to rectify google classroom access for students.
If students their password for their @ourladysbelmullet.ie account (possibly required to login to a new device) they can request it or a new password from gerardineconnor@ourladysblemullet.ie
Our experiences from the previous lockdown, taught us a lot. it was felt the prescribing of assigned classwork to students, while generally successful, became quite difficult for many students and also became an onerous task for parents. We want to avoid this scenario this time around and to retain student engagement.
So with this in mind, this time we are going to provide live classes for all student groups. There may be gaps on occasion where teachers are unable to go live due to their own household and childcare commitments . In this case students may be provided with pre-recorded classes or preassigned work to be completed during that classtime . So for students, working on pre assigned work is just as important as attending live classes.
Classes will take place live for classes students through Google Meet and they will be provided with a link on their Google Classroom. The classes will take place according to their timetable.
Students have copies of their timetable, Parents have access to the timetable through our Vsware administration system.
A roll call will at each class be taken by the teacher to monitor the level of engagement for the students. And a record of the classwork will be kept by the teacher and will be posted on Google Classroom.
Parents will be emailed a summary report on the work done in each subject at the end of the week.
We also understand that online learning presents challenges in many households, there may be issues with internet connection, availability of devices, number of children requiring devices other ICT issues. So if there are ICT issues you think we can support you with please contact us on info@ourladysbelmullet.ie and we will try to help.
In terms of engagement and communication between teachers and students, 9 to 4 are the normal working hours. Some teachers and students may be working outside of those hours, but if an email is sent by either a teacher or a student outside of those hours. There is no expectation that it will be responded to before the next day.
It’s really important for students to be fully prepared for Tuesday morning and not to be scrambling looking for passwords and codes, so please use the weekend and Monday to ensure you are fully prepared.
Myself, Ms Walsh and the rest of the team have been preparing and planning this scenario for the past few months. And for the next 3 weeks our aim to keep the learning for the students regular and smooth as possible.
In designing this plan, we have listened to the feedback from the student and the parents. We identified the need to give the students structure and regular connection each day. We think that the live classes will be more beneficial to students this this regard. And we hope it removes some of the burden of home-schooling that was experience by parents during the lockdown.
Pastoral support, for students will continue to be a priority for us and some of our teachers, will make contact with some students and parents over the coming weeks, to check how things are going and to see if we can support you in any way.
We will continue to monitor and adjust as we go and of course we always welcome your feedback. While we may think, things are going well, if that is not your experience we need to know.
Again, I wish you all a happy and safe new year. The next few weeks will bring extra challenges for all of us but I’m very optimistic that we will get through this together.
Thank you for your time
Stay safe.
Le meas
Edmund Holmes
Principal