Oak National Academy sets out lessons for new year

Government-backed online school Oak National Academy has published its plans for the lessons it will make available to support schools in the new academic year.

The Department for Education guidance for returning to school in September highlighted the need for all schools to have remote teaching plans in place in case there are local lockdowns, or staff and pupil absences due to illness and shielding.

Oak National Academy will be available throughout 2020/21 as a free resource that can be part of any school’s contingency plans, and help ensure all pupils receive a high-quality education.

To create an inclusive and flexible curriculum which meets the needs of as many schools as possible, Oak’s 40 subject leaders collaborated with a wide-range of teachers, subject associations and sector bodies to agree what lessons to produce. The flexible plans outline the detail of each subject and key stage available, with more subjects to be added early in the new academic year.

If schools wish to use it, the resource will support teachers to create a transition between learning in school and any remote learning, including a broad, flexible plan for Reception to Year 11 that teaches the most popular topics and gives schools the choice over how to order them; an expanded range of specialist content; and an ability to download and edit resources to support lesson planning where copyright allows

A team of around 300 teachers will now create and record nearly 10,000 of these lessons in the coming weeks, ready for teachers to use in September, completely free,  to support any remote teaching that might be needed.  The content is structured to enable schools to easily create a sequence of lessons which best fits in with their plans.

Since launching in response to the coronavirus lockdown, the online classroom has delivered over 16.5 million lessons reaching 4 million pupils. Oak aims to continue supporting schools with a diverse range of quality lessons and resources.

Matt Hood, Principal at Oak National Academy, said: “We’re all looking forward to schools safely reopening in September, but with the potential for local lockdowns or staff absences it’s necessary to have a back-up plan.

“Oak is available to any school that might need us. We’ve listened to feedback and our 40 subject leaders have worked closely with teachers, subject associations and sector bodies to develop a plan of nearly 10,000 lessons for the year. We’ve tried to create a broad, flexible curriculum that teaches the most popular topics and gives schools choice over how to order them.

“Oak is a completely optional resource. It is up to teachers and school leaders to decide what is best for their school, we just hope it can ease workloads and support teachers through a challenging year.

“Created by teachers, for teachers, I’m blown away by their efforts to support one another and their pupils through this pandemic. But we’ve still more to do. We hope to add more plans, for example we’re aiming to add primary art, secondary PSHE and Design & Technology in the new academic year.”