COVID 19 Recovery Curriculum

 

LEARNING CHANGES LIVES. St Michael’s Catholic High School Recovery Curriculum

 

Context

When schools were closed in England in March 2020 our students lost the most powerful resource we have – face to face contact with our excellent teachers.

Whilst we endeavoured to plan an accessible but challenging Virtual Learning programme for all of them, we know that many of our students did not learn as they would have done had they been attending lessons in school.

This means that students have been disadvantaged by this closure of schools and missed out on vital parts of their Curriculum. Therefore, what we do this year is more important than ever. The content, skills and depth of understanding we choose to teach our students will need to be carefully selected to ensure we plug the gaps.

 

Aims

The Recovery Curriculum is our attempt to bridge the gap in learning which took place as a result of COVID-19. It encompasses changes in Subject specific development, Assessment and Pastoral support.

 

The Recovery Curriculum

When planning our Recovery Curriculum we searched for evidence from research to guide us. The best research currently available on the importance of the Recovery Curriculum comes from New Zealand after the Earthquake in 2015.

‘The Recovery Curriculum is an essential construct for our thinking and our planning. Each school must fill it with the content they believe is best for the children of their school community, informed by your inherent understanding of your children in your community. What were the aims and values of your school before this pandemic? Use them now to guide your judgements, to build a personalised response to the child who has experienced loss. No government can give you the guidelines for that. It is down to you, as that skilled, intuitive teacher, who can lift the mask of fear and disenfranchisement from the child. You can engage that child as a learner once more, for engagement is the liberation of intrinsic motivation’ (Carpenter et al, 2015).

The best Recovery Curriculum we implement has to tackle the problems we faced with missed content and ideas so we need to be creative in not only how we organise the Curriculum but also how the individual departments plan and deliver their subject.

Each individual subject has reflected on their own Curriculum and offer and how they need to change it as a result of the lost teaching and learning. During lockdown and our Virtual learning provision we were clear staff that learning new content would be challenging for our students.

 

Assessment

We have tried to strike a balance between identifying what students did not learn in the previous academic year and the enforced closure and getting the students actually learning again. We adopted an assessment schedule so that each year group would be assessed over the first half term. We have placed the emphasis on the assessment being low stake and a support mechanism for the students and being key for teachers to be able to put targeted support in place for students.  

The purpose of any testing is not the test itself but the actions that follow it. Therefore, key to this is our ability to use the data we get from assessments to influence teaching and learning and subsequent student support. Any test we feel that would not benefit that has not been taken. Assessment plays a vital role in our Recovery Curriculum, as it will help us to keep developing it through the year.

 

Virtual Learning

We realise that a big part of the Recovery Curriculum will be how we deal with the potential of another set of school closures. Our Virtual Learning offer is therefore in place to ensure that this causes minimum disruption.

Actions: Individual students

Students who are Shielding

We know that some students will be forced to shield as a result of their own pre-existing medical condition or that of the close family. No student who is unable to attend the Academy due to COVID-19 should be disadvantaged and therefore we will be following this procedure:

  • Absence reported through normal procedure.
  • Teachers of that student informed.
  • Appropriate work shared via Edulink / Google Classrooms.

Students who are forced to Self-Isolate

In addition, we know that students may be forced to self-isolate for 14 days. Once again, the same applies and no student will be disadvantaged therefore we will use the following procedure:

  • Absence reported through normal procedure • Innovation Team alerted by attendance officer.
  • Teachers of that student informed.
  • Appropriate work shared via Edulink / Google Classrooms.

For both scenarios it is important students have access to Virtual learning. However, we know from previous school closures that many of our students are digitally disadvantaged and do not have access to computers or the internet. We have endeavoured to put strategies in place to overcome this.

 

Interventions 2020/21

Interventions form an important part of our Recovery Curriculum strategy.

For 2020/21 the following will take place:

  • Study Hall – 3 nights per week (Year 11)
  • Before school/after school access to the library (All Years)
  • Literacy/Numeracy Catch up Summer School (Year 7)
  • Half Term Catch Up Sessions / Intervention / Revision Sessions (Year 11)
  • After School Targeted Support Programme (Year 11)
  • Maths Student Led Support Programme (Year 11)
  • Literacy Student Led Support Programme (Year 7-9)

Intervention sessions will always be based on the needs of any individual student. Programmes that run are for selected students are based on data analysis.