Welcome to Learning Online – an area for parents/carers and community, created to support the needs of children and young people learning at home. This page is to gather your views and give you access to resources that can support you and your child.

This area/platform is new; we would like to develop it with you and ask you join us on the journey by letting us know what you and your child may need.

Below you will find a ‘Remote Learning Help’ form where you can ask for any support that you may need with remote learning.

If you have any queries or questions about your child learning from home, or need help with any aspect of this, please complete the form below. We will respond as soon as possible.

The Covid pandemic has presented many challenges and caused significant disruption to learning. Avanti School’s Trust (AST) wishes to strengthen engagement between our schools and parents/carers in order to improve information and guidance on effective practices for supporting children’s learning at home. To help us understand and further develop resources please complete the short survey below.

Top Tips for Parents and Carers

The guidance below aims to help parents and carers make the best of remote learning environments.

Establish routines and expectations

It is important to develop good habits from the start. Create a flexible routine and talk about how it’s working over time. Chunk their days into predictable segments. Help students get up, get dressed and ready to learn at a reasonable time. Try and keep to regular bedtime routines, including normal rules for digital devices. Adjust schedules to meet everyone’s needs but don’t default to staying up late and sleeping in!

Choose a good place to learn

Your family’s regular learning space for occasional homework might not work for extended periods. If you can try and set up a physical location that’s dedicated to school-focused activities. Make sure it is quiet, free from distractions and has a good internet connection. Make sure an adult monitors online learning. Keep doors open, and practice good digital safety. Our teachers and safeguarding teams will do the same.

Stay in touch

Teachers will mainly be communicating regularly through our online platforms and virtual learning environments. Make sure everyone knows how to find the help they need to be successful. Stay in contact with classroom and support teachers and school leaders but understand it may take a few hours for us to respond. If you have concerns, let someone know.

Help your child ‘own’ their learning

No one expects parents to be full-time teachers or to be educational and content matter experts. Provide support and encouragement, and expect your children to do their part. Struggling is allowed and encouraged! Don’t help too much. Becoming independent takes lots of practice. At school your child usually engages with others students and any number of adults hundreds of times each day. Many of these social interactions can and will continues from a distance, but they will be different.

Begin and end the day by checking-in

In the morning, you might ask:

• What classes/subject do you have today?

• Do you have any assessments?

• How will you spend your time?

• What resources do you need?

• What can I do to help?

At the end of the day you might ask:

• How far did you get in your learning tasks today?

• What did you discover? What was hard?

• What could we do to make tomorrow better?

Not all students thrive in distance learning; some struggle with too much independence or lack of structure. These check-in routines can help avoid later challenges and disappointments. They help students develop self-management and executive functioning that are essential skills for life.

All schools in the Avanti Schools Trust use Google Classroom. Every child will be able to access learning opportunities set by the school, using a secure, easy to use platform.

A to Z of Resources

Google Classroom Cheat Sheet for Students by Shake Up Learning

The video above will take you through the first steps to signing in to Google Classroom. This includes the very first time you sign in and the need to create your own, secure password. The search/url would be http://www.classroom.google.com. Please ensure you set a strong password (8 characters with a capital and a number).

The video above will take you through the steps to open a piece of set work, completing it and handing it in. In following videos, we will cover different types of work and more about the various parts of Google Classroom.

Support for Arbor will be coming soon.