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Creative teachers are setting up fun educational activities for children to join in with from home.

Along with the rest of the country’s schools, Magna Carta Primary Academy is closed due to the Coronavirus outbreak.

The school is being made available to the children of key worker parents, but almost all families have made alternative arrangements enabling teachers to work from home.

Using the school’s education technology app and website ClassDojo, teachers are able to connect with pupils and families in a safe way.

While work packs were given to pupils ahead of the closure to last until the Easter holidays, teachers are finding fun ways to keep their children engaged.

A book club has been launched, with children urged to join in with reading the same free e-book from Oxford Owl together over a period of two weeks.

Readers are encouraged to discuss the book and share their comments on ClassDojo.

Science experiments that can be carried out safely at home are also being set as part of the new Snap, Crackle and Pop project every two weeks.

Pupils can respond to the tasks set by sharing their photos, writing and messages on ClassDojo.

Headteacher Marios Solomonides said: “Teachers have been putting all sorts of ideas on ClassDojo for our children and families to get involved with.

“After Easter, our teachers will start to put new learning online each week. We hope to start videoing lessons for children. We are being forced to think about remote learning and alternative ways to teach and motivate.

“We have always used ClassDojo for rewards and to keep in contact with parents, so it is a system all of our families and teachers are already familiar with. We are now using the system in new ways which we will definitely continue with once school has reopened as it keeps that communication going constantly between teachers and parents.

“It is such a good system. Any teacher can go on and add information or work, I can see what our children are doing and they can tell us how they are feeling. It’s just like a safe, internal social media; it is really lovely.”

Mr Solomonides and other teachers have been making phone calls to families all week to ensure the new routine is working for them.

He said: “We want our children to know we have not forgotten about them and that we care about them. They have been so happy to talk to us and to tell us what they have been doing. It is lovely and makes it all a little bit more normal for them. We are trying to make children still feel a part of the school and their class and thinking of ways to motivate them.”

The school has created a home-learning page on its website to also share useful links and suggestions with parents.