With learning gaps from COVID remote education Richmond Hill looked for a way to support catch up provision

Even though Richmond Hill had a good remote learning offer, learning gaps still developed as it couldn’t replace the quality teaching and feedback within the classroom. When classes resumed, the teachers required something that could be delivered in an after-school tuition session to help bridge the gaps that children had whilst minimising the workload this produces. External tutors were engaged for a period, but without a thorough understanding of the children’s development areas and context, the sessions failed.

A decision was made to introduce catch up sessions using the school’s excellent staff, capitalising upon their deep knowledge of the pupils and setting. Debbie praises ClickView’s ability to support teachers in delivering remote learning, however, its role has become even more important post-lockdown as teachers work to close the learning gaps that appeared for some children.

“Our staff could teach sessions but that brought with it a higher workload for the precise lessons required. They can be forensic in terms of teaching what formative assessment in the classroom indicates the child requires, but resources they wished to use to support this were taking hours to edit to ensure all was suitable.

“The reason I looked at ClickView was primarily because it eliminated the advertising when using a video bite (the time-consuming planning of resources). Our catch-up lessons with staff are offered after school, so it had to be something a little different from normal classroom practice to hold our children’s attention.

“When I was looking into ClickView, one of the considerations was that it was a tool to become part of the pedagogy of engagement – if you take COVID away pupils at certain times in the learning journey may require intervention and we felt ClickView was able to facilitate that” Debbie elaborates.

Debbie notes that the benefit for her staff who use ClickView is the saving hours of time going from one resource to another trying to find suitable content to deliver in sessions and for individual pupil gaps.

Targeted resource for learning needs for well-supported pupils

Richmond Hill Primary Academy is committed to offering all children equality of access to the curriculum and school life, and accepts, understands and celebrates individual differences. This means teaching a broad, balanced, relevant, progressive curriculum that revisits the substantive knowledge pupils need to gain in a variety of engaging ways.

Debbie says that ClickView helps them deliver content in a way that engages students with different needs, and is particularly useful when delivering the cornerstone curriculum, or technical topics like volcanos where teachers need to bring information to life in a visual way.

“My background is SEND and when looking to support need I feel it’s important that you do have mixed media to be able to draw upon to support the revisiting of key knowledge. ClickView has that in terms of having many ways you might approach a concept, and you are able to select this from one platform.”

ClickView’s carefully curated library meant that Richmond Hill could offer curriculum-aligned tutoring that catered to pupils needs because the plethora of engaging resources enabled personalised programmes to be tailored, be that for learning recovery, learning depth or revision.

When students couldn’t go out, ClickView brought the world to them

One disappointing impact of the pandemic was the inability to take students out of the classroom on excursions, including the much-anticipated Christmas pantomime. Fortunately, ClickView is bringing glimpses of the world into the safety of the classroom.

Debbie is thrilled with the way that ClickView was able to help them deliver an experience that helped parents and students cope with unexpected changes last Christmas.

“Parents and carers understand when you have to cancel something, but they still want their children to encounter that experience. We were able to use ClickView to watch a pantomime and bring the theatre to children at the school. We supplied the popcorn, had an interval to replicate the real experience, but the main resource was supplied from ClickView,” Debbie explains.

“It’s become a resource now that’s permeated into the main curriculum. For me as a leader, it’s knowing that it’s effective, it’s reducing workload for staff and a resource that’s impactful and the children are getting quality resources that we know are safe.”

Debbie Secker
Principal

Whilst the catalyst for adoption was learning recovery, the staff organically took ClickView into the classroom. The central bank of vetted resources enabled Richmond Hill to find new ways to deliver an engaging and inspiring curriculum without drawing further on their time in planning resources.

“Our staff use resources like YouTube however the bites used for learning need manipulating so that adverts that interject are removed as this can sometimes be inappropriate and this takes time. ClickView has the quality and is more time effective as this process doesn’t need to be done,” Debbie says.

Debbie believes that the success of ClickView at Richmond Hill Primary Academy is due to having a leader driving the use among staff and ensuring there is time for feedback and conversation about the platform.

“You need someone to drive it, to deliver it to staff, asking: ‘Who’s used it?’, ‘How have you found it? Also speaking to the children as to what has engaged them through lessons or helped them to remember key knowledge. This continual feedback helps shape use across the school.

“I’ll check in at a staff meeting and hear teachers saying: ‘I did a unit on tectonics and went into ClickView and found these great resources,’ and the conversation starts from there. It’s gone from being a catch up provision to being a resource that supports the curiculum throughout the school.”