Primary Online Learning from Friday 14th January

Dear Primary Parents,

In line with the guidance from the Education Bureau (EdB), the DBIS campus is required to close from Friday 14th January until after the Chinese New Year break. The children will therefore move to online home learning on Friday 14th January. We very much hope that we will be able to re-open the campus on Monday 7th February.

We will certainly miss the children skipping into school, but we will do everything possible to ensure that engaging opportunities for learning continue to be provided each day.

Resources
Your children will be coming home on Thursday 13th February with any resources they will need to be successful in their learning. If your child requires their Chromebook to access the online learning, please ensure you have completed the JotForm, linked HERE.

For our younger learners in Year 3, who need more practical resources, packs will be made available to pick up on Friday 21st January at 2.30pm. If this is inconvenient, please speak with your child’s teacher and we will do our very best to make another arrangement.

Timetables
From our learnings from previous closures, and taking on feedback from our parent groups, we learned that as much live interaction as possible between children, teachers and their peers is the most effective way to learn. Your child’s timetable will remain the same as it is in school in order to offer the greatest continuity of learning. An overview of your child’s day from Monday 17th February can be found below:

  • 8.00 am – Visual Timetable shared on Google Classroom
  • 8.25 am – Live Registration and Welcome on Google Meet
  • 8.30 am – Live lessons online
  • 10.00 am – Break
  • 10.25 am – Online Home Learning
  • 12.10 pm – Lunch Break
  • 12.55–3.10 pm – Online Home Learning

As Friday 14th January will be our first day of online learning, your children will start their day online with their teacher between 8.20am and 8.30 am. Following that there will be learning activities posted on the Google Classroom for the children to access. To allow our teaching teams to transform their lessons from in-school to online learning, interactive live lessons will begin at 10.30am. This time will be needed as we want the teachers to maximise the face-to-face time they have with the children on Wednesday 12th January and Thursday 13th January in school.

On Friday 28th January, we have a CPD afternoon planned for teacher training. Learning activities will be made available for the children to access, and the usual Friday assembly will still take place; however, no live lessons will take place from 1pm on that day.

Children have shared with us what helped them the most when learning online at home, which is summarised below:

  • Using the visual timetable at the beginning of the school day to collect my books and resources for the day.
  • Finding a quiet space with a desk and headphones was helpful.
  • Having my break times outside so that I can get fresh air and run around like I do in school.
  • Spending time playing with my friends.

Library
We warmly invite you to borrow library books for your child/children during the school closure and CNY holiday period. This can be done by searching the library catalogue (HERE) and using the Jotform found on our website (direct link EY1-Y6) to submit requests. Requested books will be available for collection from the Primary School office. Please note, only adults will be allowed to enter the school campus. The last date for submitting requests before Chinese New Year will be Wednesday 26th January 2022 for collection by midday on Thursday 27th January 2022.

Accessing Online Learning
As our children use the online platforms daily, they are very familiar with Seesaw and Google Classroom. For our Year 3 families, the online learning will be different to what your children experienced in Year 2; however, the children have practised using Google Classroom and are now confident when using this platform. Classes will have the opportunity to familiarise themselves with Google Meet prior to Friday’s closure, testing their Chromebooks and microphones. With Google’s new security features, it is essential that children sign in with their school account to access Seesaw, Google Classroom and Google Meet. For security reasons, children will not be admitted into any Google Meet if they are not signed into the correct school account.

Emergency Childcare
The EdB requires schools to offer emergency childcare to those children who are unable to be safely supervised at home. With teachers and educational assistants teaching classes online, we will only be able to offer a limited number of emergency childcare spaces at our Early Years campus to families who have no childcare at home. Full details about the emergency childcare can be found on the Parent Hub (HERE).

Thank you
As you know, our teaching teams are experienced in online home learning and will give their all to your children each and every day. I am fully aware that this is not a situation any of us would have wished for and that these are not easy days, so I really do appreciate your efforts in supporting your children.

We have created a short video that we hope helps parents and/or carers when supporting children in their online learning, which you can view HERE. The slides can be accessed HERE.  Please don’t hesitate to contact me directly at [email protected] should you have any questions or queries.

Best wishes,
Susan

DBIS Hub

DBIS Hub