Home Learning Provision
Spring Term 2021 school closure

Whilst our school might be closed to most pupils, our learning continues remotely through a number of systems. If you have difficuly accessing any of the learning please contact the school. If you are in need of support with devices to use at home or with internet connection, please get in touch with school so we can help. If you are struggling to share devices between siblings we can also try to help you.

The most important resouce during school closure is Microsoft Teams. All pupils have a Microsoft 365 account they can use to log in and access their work, called assignments. Teachers are available on Teams chat during the school day to reply to any questions about work that has been set. There are also twice-weekly class "check-ins" with the teacher for face-to-face video chats with the class so everyone can see each other. These are pastoral in nature. Many classes also hold "help-desk" style drop-ins for any children needing to ask something about the work for that day.

To access teams either visit teams.office.com or download the Microsoft Teams app from your App store, or click on Teams from the Microsoft 365 portal homepage. If you do not have your child's username and password, please contact the school.

 The dbprimary learning platform is our online platform used for learning and practising safe online behaviours. We actively encourage pupils, where they have parental permission, to use the email, blogging, and discussion forums features to share socially with their friends. This is particularly important during a time of school closure where they are not able to see their friends as often as they normally would. From Year 3 we learn about keeping safe online, how to communicate online, and safe sharing. This ring-fenced platform does not allow external email from outside of school to be sent or received and all messages (including deleted ones) can be tracked and followed up by school staff where it may be necessary to do so. Children will make mistakes online, and this is their safer space to do so, where we can work it through and discuss how to behave, remove anything that needs removing and help pur pupils to become safe, confident digital learners. Computing lessons covering programming also take place on the platform. Various activities are also available and some teachers or teaching assistants may set activities for pupils to complete. Any activities waiting to be completed appear on the "Things To Do" part of their homepage. 

To access the dbprimary learning platform, log in from the school website www.westfield.cambs.sch.uk.

We use Accelerated Reader to help children gain confidence in their reading and to help them make challenging choices once they have completed formal reading schemes and are independently reading. Taking a regular "Star Test" each half term gives children a ZPD (zone of proximal development) range to guide their next reading choices. When an book that is on AR is completed, a short quiz to gauge comprehension can be taken. Usually AR quizes can only be taken in school, but whilst school is closed to most pupils, quizzes can be taken from home.

To log in to AR you need to log in to the Westfield AR login page  and the AR login is usually the first three letters of firstname and first three letters of surname (so gavban for Gavin Banks) and then the password made up of birth day and birth month, with no leading 0 for birth day but where appropriate a leading 0 for birth month - so 3rd April is 304, 10th May is 1005, 11th December is 1112. 

Mathletics is the engaging online mathematics program made for both classroom and home learning. It contains fun practice and fluency activities to challenge pupils' thinking with problem-solving and reasoning questions, and it rewards their learning with certificates and points. Points are earned by completing activities, and 1000 points in any week generates a bronze certificate. 5 bronze certificates leads to a silver one, a 4 silvers make a gold. 

Teachers can set targetted work at an appropriate level, and children have the opportunity to go through the activities further if they wish. They can also play live games against each other or children from other schools. 

To log in, visit www.mathletics.com/signin with your pupils details 

Readiwriter Spelling focuses on explicit instruction of phonology, orthography, morphology and etymology to help spell unfamiliar words and to create confident spellers. Teachers can set specific word lists for practice. Readiwriter Spelling uses a mix of extrinsic and intrinsic motivators, including: Meritopia: a reward world students can steadily discover as they reach their learning goals; Certificates: awarded once students have attained a certain number of points; Interactive activities designed to engage students from the moment they enter the program; Visible progress tracking: students can see their development as they advance through the program, encouraging them to take ownership of their learning.
To log in, visit www.readiwriter.com/signin with your mathletics log in details, or if you are logged in to Mathletics, click on the M in the top left corner and switch over from Mathletics to Readiwriter.

Pickatale provides access to hundreds of books for children, available to read free of charge.You need to download an app called “Pickatale for Schools” available from the App Store on Apple and Android devices. This is an additional resource being made available during lockdown due to limited access to reading books. There is no cost to the school in providing this,
however Pickatale have confirmed unlimited free access will be continued beyond lockdown.

There is no obligation or expectation to use it. It is simply a free resource you are invited to use if you wish. The username and password is the same as your child’s learning platform log in. No class joining code is required.
A userguide for the Pickatale App is available at https://pickatale.co.uk/app/uploads//2020/11/Student-App-2.pdf

All pupils have access to a Microsoft 365 account giving access to office tools like Word, Excel, Powerpoint, online presentation maker Sway, and virtually unlimited private file space in OneDrive. The Microsoft 365 portal can be accessed from portal.office.com from most computers, and on mobile devices apps for Office, Word, Excel, Powerpoint, Stream, Sway and Teams can be downloaded if required. Note that pupils do not have an Outlook email account as part of 365, this has been disabled for safety. The @westfieldjnr.education they use to log in is only a log in and not an email address. The learning platform provides safe pupil email accounts.

Files are automatically saved to the OneDrive cloud space, preventing space on your device being taken up with files and ensuring they are easily accessible anywhere. All 365 apps and the portal login require the @westfieldjnr.education username and password used for Microsoft Teams.