It's finally 'back to school' time.
No doubt this period of change will come with its challenges, so we wanted to share some top tips to help you have a safe, smooth and enjoyable transition back into the classroom.
TEACHERS
Continue to include absent / self-isolating students
Continue to set classwork tasks which reflect your in-class lessons; this keeps content accessible for any absent / self-isolating students. Remember that you can now set tasks to individuals to avoid duplicating work for those who have already taken part within the classroom.
You could even share video conferencing links to your school assemblies via the Notice Board for any remote learners.
Communicate with students via the Timetable
Ensure that your timetables are kept up to date with live lesson links so that any remote learners can still take part with ease and feel included in school activities.
Continue to link published tasks to your timetable; this ensures that your learners can see upcoming deadlines associated with their lessons.
Prepare and maintain your seating plans
To save time, make use of any Seating templates that your admin users have already made.
Our seat labelling tool allows you to block out seats for social distancing and any support staff so that you are organised and in line with safety regulations.
Record and share important student information
Streamline communication within the staff team by sharing important updates and concerns about student welfare using Satchel One.
Remember to make use of Welfare Notes within your seating plans too! If there are any new and important Welfare Notes that have been shared, you will be able to see a blue pulsing dot by the student. Click to see more information!
Keep awarding points and badges to in-class and remote learners
Don't forget to reward and encourage your students using points and badges, whether they are in the classroom or studying from home!
Set and manage your detentions
Set detentions quickly and easily for individuals or groups of students.
Remember that Behaviour points and Detentions are communicated automatically to students and parents via the app to ensure that everyone is up to date.
Track attendance and punctuality for your student groups
Keep track of student attendance for your tutor / pastoral group using our Attendance report. You can schedule this to arrive in your inbox automatically every week so that you are always up to date.
If your school uses our Attendance Pro app to take attendance and write data back to SIMS, please find more information below for a refresher!
SENIOR LEADERS AND ADMIN USERS
Time to change your default submission method?
During lockdown, the default submission method was changed from 'Class Submission' to 'Online Submission via SMHW' for all schools to help with distance learning.
Admin users can now choose a different default submission method for the whole school.
Do your need staff training?
Staff may not yet have explored our additional features for a while, so please feel free to share any useful resources with your team from our Help Centre!
If you think staff could benefit from some remote training delivered by our Satchel One Product Evangelists, please reach out to our Customer Success team via the chat area.
Check seating plan coverage
Don't forget to use our Seating report to ensure that there is appropriate coverage across the school. It's a great way to surface all seating plans that a student is included in for track and trace purposes.
Consider updating your Seating templates
To make the transition easier for staff, you could adjust existing seating plan templates or create new ones by going to Admin > Seating > Templates.
This will make life easier for teachers when it comes to creating any new plans, as they can import the desk template you have created and concentrate solely on placing their students!
Review your Behaviour reasons, badges and limits
You might like to create new Behaviour reasons and badges so that you can give more specific and circumstantial recognition to your students.
You could create a 'Great remote engagement' badge, or add positive / negative reasons related more specifically to online communications.
You might also like to adjust your Behaviour point / badge limits by going to Admin > Behaviour > Behaviour points.
Update your Detention types
You may have already created Detention types for staff to use, however these could be due for a review. Do the assigned rooms for your existing types have sufficient space for students to be appropriately distanced? Do you have the correct staff assigned to supervise your detentions?
Set up your Attendance groups
If you haven't already, why not create some custom Attendance groups? This allows you to filter by students within specific attendance percentage brackets of your choosing.
Manage your groups by going to Admin > Attendance > Create new.
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