The engagement of the students at William Howard School in Brampton in their remote learning has been very high in the first weeks of term – and their efforts and resilience have been commended by staff at the school.

Students are supported remotely through the school’s Virtual Learning Environment (VLE), with an associated student app to enable students to keep track and access all work set. Teachers provide an instructional video, resources and tasks directly to the students. Some lessons for the older years and all sixth form lessons are also taught live via Microsoft Teams.

Headteacher Chris McAree said, “Our systems for remote learning were developed over the previous lockdown and we know they work, as the vast majority of our students returned to school in September without having developed significant learning gaps."

He adds: “We recognise that many families face challenges around broadband capacity, number of devices available and connectivity, especially with many parents now also working at home. In the last couple of weeks, we have distributed a large number of laptops to help, but we know that we cannot overcome all the pressures.

"Our systems, we hope, take into account most scenarios, but we urge parents to come forward if there are any particular issues."

If a student emails staff, they will call the student into a 1-1 Teams meeting by return and provide the help the student needs.

Mr McAree explains: “All staff emails are accessible by the students through their school email accounts, and if in doubt about any work they can always drop them a quick message.”