Frequently asked questions

What measures are you putting in place to maintain my child’s safety online?

Parents and carers will have heard of cases in schools where hackers have managed to get into online lessons and wreak potential havoc. Our Federation has a lot of expertise and shared experience and has made a number of security changes to ensure that unauthorised people cannot get into lessons. We have not suffered to a significant extent with the sorts of issues you may have heard about in the press although of course we continue to monitor what is happening nationally to review our systems. Students have 'personal development briefings' covering issues like online safety.

I am concerned about the amount of hours being spent online looking at a screen. Can work be set so students are not constantly on a screen as this could lead to future health implications?

Students do have prep which is not online which makes up about a quarter of the learning time of 6 hours per day. However, there are 4 hours and 30 minutes per day online in chunks of 90 minutes with breaks in between. Lessons are live and recorded so students who find it difficult to be online for that long can take breaks and complete lessons by using the recorded lessons later. Students have 24 hours to complete tasks after the lesson.  

Can you help if my child is suffering during the lockdown?

Students may suffer from loneliness or anxiety and we have mentors and pastoral staff, psychologists and counsellors or just their favourite teachers who can help. We make hundreds of 'phonecalls to students every month. We even call each student on their birthday.

Should their education suffer?

We aim to ensure that doesn't happen. We teach the same curriculum in the same order and expect the same prep, do nows and consolidation tasks to be submitted. These pieces of work together show us the progress students are making.

What should I do if am worried about my child's progress?

Call us - we don't want any more than you do. Your child has one chance at an education and lockdown is not their fault. We will do all we can.

How much work should my child be doing?

6 hours per day made up of three 90 minute lessons and 90 minutes of prep.

What should my child be doing?

All their prep, attend all 3 lessons every day, complete the prep quiz, complete the 'do now' and submit the consolidation task.

Will I still get prep scores?

Yes, parents and carers can access the prep scores via 'My Child at School' and we will contact parents and carers in the normal way if scores are poor.

What can I do to help?

Please have high expectations of your child and the academy.

Please make sure students attend all lessons or watch them back later - they are all recorded.

Please make sure that students submit their prep quiz, their do now and crucially their consolidation tasks. Students have 24 hours to submit consolidation tasks.

How does my child see how many house points he or she has?

Students can access the competition points via this website by clicking on 'student portal.'

My child is uncomfortable typing in the chat. Will her effort go unnoticed?

Absolutely not. We have a number of staff in the remote lesson so students aren't in any way competing for attention. In fact, students are positively discouraged from being over enthusiastic in the chat. Most rewards are for prep, attendance and the quality of consolidation tasks all of which do not require any involvement in the chat.

Can I get a laptop?

The government gave us laptops and we have so far loaned out 50 laptops. Currently we have no further laptops and we have a waiting list. 

What if we have no internet access?

Students have hard copy prep packs and other resources on paper and we can help in various other ways but ultimately if students are vulnerable due to anxiety over their progress, they can attend the academy instead. 

I have heard in the news about remote lessons being poor in some schools or being hacked by unsavoury people. Is that happening at HARI?

Some teachers have been teaching face to face for 20 years and no teacher is trained on remote lessons in their teacher training. Everyone is learning but we have put hours into training all our staff and we quality assure our lessons by having around 5 members of staff in each lesson to help out and also to feedback to the teacher on the quality of the lesson. Our lesson quality is reaching very high standards and is increasing rapidly. We take expert advice from our Federation and have a lot of controls to ensure things don't go badly in the lesson. We have only had one problem of external people accessing a lesson since last March. The loophole that caused that issue has been closed....