This week saw the launch of Oak National Academy, an online service to help teachers and families access educational materials during the school closures.
The content available may prove useful for teachers to complement existing lesson plans or study areas, or as guides for parents to engage children in learning on topics covering all areas of the curriculum.
The below provides a guide to the service and what is involved.
Oak National Academy: How do I access it?
The Oak National Academy lessons will be available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week on their online website.
Every week there will be 180 hours of lessons for students, split between primary and secondary content.
Every day there will be three hours of work for primary school children, and four hours for secondary school children.
Families can access the website via mobile phones, tablets, laptops, standalone computers, or even ‘smart’ televisions that can access the internet.
How long are the lessons?
Each lesson is an hour long. Activities include quizzes, teacher-led video explanations and worksheets.
What content is covered?
For primary children, lessons cover the core subjects of English (including phonics at EYFS and KS1) and maths. They also devote time to modern foreign languages and a ‘foundation’ section, which includes content for science, geography and history, taught through a topic-based curriculum.
For secondary school pupils, there are lessons available in English, maths, science, history, geography, modern foreign languages, religious studies, art and Latin.
New lessons will be released each week, and there is a curriculum map available here.
How was the content put together?
Lesson content has been developed by over 60 teachers from different areas, who have worked together to respond to schools having to reimagine how they teach. Their profiles are available on the Oak Academy website here.
The project is being funded by the Department for Education, and has had technical support from Google.
Matt Hood, principal of Oak National Academy said: “Every teacher has had to adapt since the coronavirus lockdown. They have changed their plans at speed – moving resources online, teaching remotely, and discussing with their colleagues how best to collaborate to support their students.
“Oak National Academy is our contribution. It has been built in under two weeks, through a collaboration of many state school teachers, plus organisations across the sector. Our aim is to support teachers to support their pupils.”
How long will it run for?
The Oak National Academy says it will continue to provide new content until the schools are able to reopen, whenever that might be.
