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DfE guidance

In developing this contingency plan, we have considered the requirements outlined by the DfE who expect schools to:

  • use a curriculum sequence that allows access to high-quality online and offline resources and teaching videos and that is linked to the school’s curriculum expectations
  • give access to high quality remote education resources
  • select the online tools that will be consistently used across the school in order to allow interaction, assessment and feedback and make sure staff are trained in their use
  • provide printed resources, such as textbooks and workbooks, for pupils who do not have suitable online access
  • recognise that younger pupils and some pupils with SEND may not be able to access remote education without adult support and so schools should work with families to deliver a broad and ambitious curriculum

When teaching pupils remotely, the DfE expect schools to:

  • set assignments so that pupils have meaningful and ambitious work each day in a number of different subjects
  • teach a planned and well-sequenced curriculum so that knowledge and skills are built incrementally, with a good level of clarity about what is intended to be taught and practised in each subject
  • provide frequent, clear explanations of new content, delivered by a teacher in the school or through high-quality curriculum resources or videos
  • gauge how well pupils are progressing through the curriculum, using questions and other suitable tasks and set a clear expectation on how regularly teachers will check work
  • enable teachers to adjust the pace or difficulty of what is being taught in response to questions or assessments, including, where necessary, revising material or simplifying explanations to ensure pupils’ understanding
  • plan a programme that is of equivalent length to the core teaching pupils would receive in school, ideally including daily contact with teachers