Month: August 2020

DISTANCE LEARNING 2.0 – PS OVERVIEW

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Please find below a comprehensive outline of our Distance Learning approaches at Peak School for the weeks ahead.

It provides background context, contact information, roles and responsibilities, communication commitment and the areas we have focused on in terms of enhancing the distance learning experience and what these look like.

You can also download the PDF version of the presentation by clicking below:

Peak School Distance Learning Overview – Parents.

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INTRODUCING SEESAW TO YEAR 1-4

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Dear Peak School Parents,

Welcome back, I hope you had a relaxing summer. We are writing to inform you about a new program/application we will be using in years 1 to 4. After looking over the feedback we received last school year, we have decided to go with an application called SeeSaw. 

SeeSaw is an internationally recognized application that makes it easy for students’ online learning. It also has a feature that enables parents to view their child’s work, and leave their own feedback from anywhere, anytime. 

Over the coming days we will be introducing the app to our children. After we get everything set up for them, we will also be giving parents access as well. 

Families on SeeSaw

This is a general overview of how families (parents) can view what their children are doing in class and their responses to the learning tasks. Please note, we will be setting up SeeSaw for families after introducing and upskilling the students.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Tv5V_uD0IM

Students on SeeSaw

Below is an example of how a student may use SeeSaw to upload and share their work with their teacher. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g5jG9VoROFs

What’s great about SeeSaw is it keeps all of the learning in one place, as well as making it easily accessible by students and parents.

 

SeeSaw is accessible through the SeeSaw website (https://web.seesaw.me/) and is available as an app for your mobile devices. 

I am sure there will be lots of questions, please don’t hesitate to contact us.

Kind regards,

The ICT Team

ictsupport@peakschool.edu.hk

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DISTANCE LEARNING – IMPORTANT INFORMATION

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Dear Parents

This message includes important information about the start of the school year next Wednesday the 12th of August.  Our priority is to welcome our new children as well as support our returning children ensuring everyone has a positive week next week.

It may be a challenge for some of the children to fully understand when the holiday stops and when the school term begins.  To help with this, we ask that all the children join the daily zoom calls next week in their uniform.  This does not apply to our Year 1 and new students as they are yet to get their uniforms.  This should help the children transition from holiday mode to learning mode.  If the children have PE they are welcome to dress in their PE uniform that day should they wish.  We will look to do this for the first couple of weeks at least so that the children are mentally (and physically) ready for the school day and the learning ahead that day.

Important Reminder: teachers will be sending the weekly timetable for next Wednesday to Friday’s learning including online lesson (Zoom) times early next week via the app. Please ensure app registration is completed.

As mentioned earlier this week we are looking to enhance 4 key areas this year as we approach another stint of distance learning with our children.

The 4 Key areas are:

  • Connect Times (online lessons via Zoom) – quantity and quality
  • Submission of learning – streamlining the collation of learning responses that our children are submitting
  • Accessibility of learning tasks – streamlining where the children need to look to locate their learning for the day across all curriculum areas
  • Feedback to students – where, when and how
We are making some changes and these changes need to be discussed with the staff on Monday and finalised before we can share them with the rest of the school community.  Obviously, if we were planning not to make these changes, we would have been in a position to share the normal distance learning program well before Monday.
We have created a comprehensive Distance Learning 2.0 document that will be shared with staff on Monday morning, their official first day back after the holidays, and then with all our parents on Monday afternoon.  This will highlight the changes we are making in response to parent feedback and our own reflection and review around what is best for our children.
More detailed information to follow on Monday afternoon.
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DISTANCE LEARNING – FAQs

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What about stationery?
With the current situation across Hong Kong we are reluctant to create a situation where we are asking parents to come to school to collect stationery.  Initially we will look to provide learning activities that require basic stationery equipment which most households will already have.
What about access to home readers and library books?
Similar to the stationery question, we do not want parents coming and going to collect these from school so these are not available until further notice.  We will look to utilise the online reading resources that we used last year to support our children.
Are we still using Zoom?
Yes, we are still using Zoom to host all our online lessons.  We will provide support for our new families before Wednesday around how to use Zoom but fortunately it is very easy to use.  Visitors will be placed into a waiting room before the teacher will allow them to join the call.
Are we still using Google Classrooms?
I cannot go into too many details until Monday afternoon but some year groups will continue to use Google Classrooms as it is a very powerful platform.   However other year groups will be introducing a new online platform that is specifically designed for schools and works particularly well in the younger year groups.  This new platform will address many of our issues around submitting work, locating learning tasks and providing feedback.  It will be our new “one stop shop” for the children, staff and parents which we know will be appreciated by all.  We are very confident that everyone involved will welcome the introduction of the new platform but it will of course take us all time to get used to it and appreciate its full potential.  It is new to the staff so we will all be learning together.
Will there be parent information sessions that we can “drop into” online via Zoom to learn how to use the different platforms that are being used by the school?
Yes, we are very aware that we will need to provide training for our new parents as well as all our parents who are going to be expected to interact with the new platform.  These training sessions or videos will be available in the coming weeks.  Any “live” workshops we provide online will be recorded and made available so you can always watch it even if you cannot make the actual Zoom call.
Has the school arranged it so our children are online all day with the teacher?
No, this is not something we are prepared to do for a number of reasons.  However, we are looking to increase the number of Zoom online lessons each day as well as other opportunities for children to get support when they need it.  There will also be weekly drop in sessions where children can drop in should they need specific support.  In addition to the Zoom online lessons that our teachers will lead, our Educational Assistants (EA), Learning Enhancement Team (LET) and Leadership Team (LMT) will also be offering small group focus support across all the year groups.
In the coming weeks we are also looking at providing opportunities for the children just to “hang out” together in a supervised manner via Zoom as a class or year group once a week.  This will ensure they keep in contact with their peers in a relaxed manner much like they would during a snack or lunch break at school.
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IMPORTANT MESSAGE – ESF APP

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We got an email from the ESF App developers last night asking us to share the following message.

This message only applies to those that used the ESF App last year.

MESSAGE FROM ESF

If you took part in the ESF App pilot last year  – at the start of each academic year you need to logout (or uninstall) the App and unlock with a new PIN.

This will then rebuild your App dashboard with your latest data including any new students (siblings joining the school), new ESF schools (your child moving from Primary to Secondary) and updated student year groups.

Because the App has been updated since the pilot, we recommend:

  1. Delete/Uninstall the ESF App
  2. Go to the App store and search for ESF App to get the latest
  3. Open the App and enter your email
  4. Wait for the PIN to arrive by email (it is possible email will go to a spam folder)
  5. Enter the PIN
  6. Wait for unlock to complete, sometimes for as long as 3-5 min, whilst the new App dashboard is assembled – even after the whirling stops

Contact school IT in first instance if you need support – ictsupport@peakschool.edu.hk

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