Teacher notes on home learning

The basics

Make sure each learner has been sent their login details. They will need their usernames and passwords. You can find them here:

Make sure your learners know how to use the Community Village at home. Click here: Independent Learning Booklet, for our document that explains how to do this very simply. Talk the learners through this document.

Working from home, your learners can continue to follow their pre-set Learning Journeys. However, you can also set them ‘priority lessons’: lessons that are most relevant to their needs. Click here: Customise content, to find out how to set priority lessons and how to let your learner know that you have done so.

Up and running?

If you have a motivated and active group of learners, choose a time for them all to login and play a multiplayer game of set lessons. Click here: Multiplayer games, to find out how to set up a multiplayer game.

Make learning more fun by asking your learners to take part in competitions you can create e.g. most progress in the week or time spent learning.

Staying in touch

Stay in touch with your learners – and keep them motivated – by sending them messages on the Community Village. Click here: Send learner messages, for how to send a message. Praise the good work they’ve done and let them know what they should do next. Could you include a reward and send it to their post office?

Send weekly certificates for progress and time spent learning by clicking here: Create certificate. Can you hold a virtual certificate awards ceremony on your school’s social media platforms?

You can now also send your own PDFs to your learners by attaching them to messages. The learners can then view these attachments in a popup box where they can be saved or printed. Messages will be shown when the learner next logs in and they'll also be accessible from the post office on the learner's map. Don't forget there's a whole lot more you can do with the messages you send your learners - send motivational messages and gifts, ask your learners to study specific lessons, and send a visualisation of your message for those that need a little extra assistance.

Home/school diary You can give learners ownership of tracking learning by signing when they have completed sessions.

Keeping track

The Community Village works through in-built assessment. To keep your learners properly on track, you need to know exactly what they are doing and for how long. Use the tracking and assessment tools on the programme to help you work out what your learners should be doing next. Is there a lesson they need to revise? Can they skip ahead? Are learners concentrating too much on lessons they already know – or alternatively, jumping around the site too much? Can you encourage them to work through their Learning Journey pathway systematically?

Offline resources

Make the most of the Community Village’s offline resources. Our EAL Scaffolding Resources, for example, which cover a range of Survival language and ESP topics, are ideal for learners working at home. These resources can be printed out and given to learners, or accessed via electronic links emailed to learners: EAL Resource Packs. We have drawn up some basic instructions to help learners and teachers using these resources for the first time.

Download template letters home here. The letters will provide all the information your parents need to support their child with successful home learning.

Role-play cards can be downloaded here: Role-play cards, and sent out to learners for them to practise at home with their children.

Further resources on the Community Village can be downloaded here: Toolbox.

For full advice on remote teaching through the Community Village, see our document on remote teaching here: Remote teaching and learning booklet. For help and advice on anything relating to the Community Village, contact us.