Dear parent/guardian,
Firstly, I would like to take this opportunity to thank you for your support with online learning for all pupils during this time. The decision to close schools to pupils brings with it challenges for all, but your son/daughter’s education remains our top priority.
All pupils are currently being taught through Microsoft TEAMS. Our teachers are providing set work, as well as direct instruction through narrated PowerPoints, video content and text means. To ensure that you hear the narrations please ensure the PowerPoints are opened in the desktop app, as the online version does not always function with the narration.
Last week, Denbighshire County Council changed their guidance to schools to allow us to extend our use of live lessons. This means we are now able to deliver online streamed lessons to all year groups. Since September we have successfully been using ‘live lessons’ with our 6th Form students during instances where they have been working from home and we look forward to increasing this provision to all pupils. Therefore, from next week we aim to increase our use of live lessons where possible.
As ever, we continue to adapt so that we can deliver the best possible means of teaching online and we aim to live stream as many lessons that we can. There are several challenges and obstacles we need to overcome in order to achieve this goal:
- The infrastructure and broadband width provided to us at school would not be able to cope with all 85 teachers live streaming at once
- Safeguarding protocols must be in place to keep everyone safe online including guidance from Welsh Government that restricts the use of certain devices for live lessons, having two adults online for each lesson or recording all sessions
- Not all pupils have access to their own device and share devices at home with other pupils, meaning many learners will not be able to access the lesson in real time. Therefore, any sessions which are taught live will be recorded in order to allow students who may have to share devices to catch up.
- We are also mindful of young people’s mental health during this time and as a school we believe that to have students sat following a rigid timetable of live lessons for 5 hours a day, 5 days a week may be detrimental to their wellbeing. Students need to develop skills of independence and time management during this time. All pupils must complete the amount of work each day that they are capable of without increasing stress or anxiety at this very difficult time.
Please be assured we have worked tirelessly to overcome these hurdles so that we can provide the best possible education for all learners.
To further support pupil wellbeing, they will be invited to registration sessions with their peers and their group tutor or member of the year team beginning next week, in order to check in with them.
In summary, we aim to have more students taught in live lessons to support their learning over the coming weeks. These sessions will support your son/daughters learning and they will be notified by their teachers via TEAMS when these sessions will be. The first sessions for Year 7-11 pupils will begin as soon as possible, with all pupils invited to live sessions within the next week. Please don’t hesitate to contact the school if you have any questions regarding this on info@prestatynhigh.co.uk.
Yours faithfully
Mr. A. I. Barons
Assistant Headteacher.