Following a number of trial online virtual lessons over the past 4 weeks, we are excited to publish our first weekly timetable of sessions for next week (see below). There is a wide variety of session types, some subject-focused, some form-based and we’re are even running a key stage “thought for the day” session. The overriding aim of the sessions is to provide an opportunity for pupils to join together with their teacher for some fun and engaging activities.
All these sessions will be carried out online through Microsoft Teams. This is a private platform, accessible only by those with a Birchensale Middle School email address, meaning that only our pupils and staff will be in the sessions and so you can be assured that it will be a safe environment. As per lessons in school, teachers will ensure that online behaviour in the sessions is appropriate.
For some Y7 and Y8 pupils we know that they have two school email addresses – please can they use the one starting with 2digits: Their email addresses are in the following format
Year 8 pupils – 16firstnamesurname@birchensale.worcs.sch.uk (eg 16sianevans@birchensale.worcs.sch.uk)
Year 7 pupils – 17firstnamesurname@birchensale.worcs.sch.uk (eg 17davidplatt@birchensale.worcs.sch.uk)
Some children will have already had invites to these sessions through their school email accounts, but if they have not then they can sign up to the session by clicking on the links provided in the timetable below (they will be asked to log in to Microsoft Teams using their school email address). We are awaiting links for some of the sessions and will update the timetable asap) It is then just a case of logging into Teams before the session begins and joining the lesson.
Children will be asked not to use their cameras and to mute any microphones if they have these on the device being used to access the session. Don’t worry if they don’t have these on their device, whilst staff will be using video and audio, most of the pupils’ interactions and responses will be through typing messages. We are aware that it will not always be possible, for a whole number of reasons, for some pupils to access the sessions live, so the sessions will be recorded and children can access it at any point in the future.
Whilst we have trailed these online sessions and learnt a lot, there will undoubtedly be some teething issues with IT. Hopefully not too many, but we know that you will be understanding if something doesn’t go to plan!