Dear Parents/ Carers
As many of you are aware, during the national lockdown and school closures earlier this year, pupils at Newdale Primary school accessed home learning through Purple Mash and the school’s website/blogs. We have been working hard to extend and improve this offer in the event of a bubble at Newdale having to close for a period of time and for those pupils having to self isolate at home.
Staff have started to work with Google Classroom which is a web-based learning platform. It offers a digital safe space for students to view class tasks, access learning materials, view posted assignments, and submit completed work. You will also be able to ask your child’s teacher questions about their learning and they will respond and provide feedback to you. Teachers are able to prerecord lessons and post them to the Classroom and at times may be able to offer live sessions through Google Meet (the link to this is in the Classroom).
An account has already been created for every child from Reception to Year 6 and you will be given details of their username and password. Once you receive this, we strongly advise that you log into Google Classroom to allow you and your child to familiarise yourselves with the platform together. In school pupils in Years 3-6 have already been using Google Classroom to familiarise themselves with the layout. For children in Years Reception – Year 2 they will need adult support to log in and access the learning materials just like they would have done previously accessing the website and Purple Mash.
To help with this we have produced a quick guide to show you how to log in and use Google Classroom. If you have any problems with your log in, please do not hesitate to contact your child’s teacher. We hope that this makes your child’s learning easier and a little more interactive during any times we cannot be with them.
Google Classroom Pupil/Parent Guide
Logging In
If using a laptop:
- Go to https://classroom.google.com and click on the “Go to classroom” button.
- Enter your school email address: firstname.lastname@taw.org.uk followed by the password.
- Pupils will be presented with their classroom.
If using a mobile app:
Pupils/parents have the opportunity to download the Google classroom app on their handheld device if a laptop isn’t available. It is free but you must remember to use your child’s school login details as opposed to any other Google account that you use at home.
Having logged in and choosing ‘I am a student’ (if there is an option) pupils will be presented with their classroom.
Viewing and Accessing Home Learning
Once logged in to Google Classroom, pupils need to click on the title of their class. Having clicked on this, they will then be in the Classroom. Here they will have 3 tabs in front of them: “Stream“, “Classwork” and “People“.
The “Stream” Page
This is the homepage for the classroom. Any new classwork or messages to the class from your child’s teacher will appear here. This page works similarly to a social network page. The most recent post that a teacher has added to the Google Classroom will be at the top and the oldest will be at the bottom.
The “Classwork” Page
This will allow you to view and access all the work assigned by the teachers. Teachers will upload work by topic. The activities are listed underneath each topic with a due date. When you click on an activity, it will show you the instructions and the option to view the activity.
The “People” page
This displays the class teachers and a list of children in the class. For safeguarding, e-mail access for all child accounts has been turned off.
Accessing and Submitting Classwork
From within the classroom section, clicking on any piece of classwork will display instructions from the teacher, along with any attached resources. Depending on work set these attachments might include links to an online resource or activity, ebooks or fact sheets, quizzes, or a document template for your child to work from. Clicking on the attachment will open a new tab and allow you to view it.
Attached documents are saved automatically as they are edited and will be sent to the teacher when ‘turned in’. This can be done by clicking the ‘turn in’ button at the top of the document. For classwork that does not require turning in, such as completing an online activity, simply click the ‘mark as done’ button. This will inform the teacher that the activity has been completed.
If you have any questions regarding a piece of classwork, you can send a message to the teacher using the private comments box.
Hopefully this guide has covered the basics and you should now be ready to start using Google Classroom.
