How is Seesaw Used Across the Primary School?

Seesaw has been developed as a multi-purpose platform which is used in slightly different ways across the three phases of the Primary, the Early Years Foundation (Nursery and Reception) Stage, Key Stage One (Year 1 and Year 2) and Key Stage Two (Years 3, 4 and 5).

Seesaw in the Early Years Foundation (Nursery and Reception)

For those of you with children in the Early Years, you will no doubt want to know what your children have been learning. At this very young age, children are less able to share their learning with their parents as their language skills are still developing. The EYFS teachers regularly use Seesaw to take photographic evidence of the children’s learning and play. It is primarily a digital portfolio, with opportunities for the class teacher to share key moments across the week with parents. Parents are encouraged to add comments and share these with their children, as it makes them feel proud of their achievements.

Seesaw in Key Stage One

As children move into Year One, there is a shift towards a more reflective process. Therefore you will probably notice that what you see in Seesaw changes quite significantly when your child moves from Reception into Year 1.

Students start to take on ownership of their own Seesaw journal in order to show what they have been learning and, crucially, how they learned. The students in Key Stage One learn how to post photos of their work and then use the Seesaw multimodal tools, such as the video, audio and typing tools, to explain their learning. The process of reflection is an important skill, and Seesaw is a great platform for this.

In addition to students posting examples of their work, teachers will also post a few photos each week so that parents can see additional examples of the learning that has taken place.

Seesaw in Key Stage Two (Years 3, 4 and 5)

As the children move into Key Stage Two, the reflective process is developed even further. Now, the teachers will be working with the students to consider in detail what and how they have learnt, what they are most proud of and how they could improve further. They also focus on the skills of metacognition (learning about learning) which encourages students to think about the skills and approaches they used to complete the piece of work. The students learn to think about whether they have demonstrated the attributes of a “good learner”.

To do this, they might consider questions such as:

• Was this task asking for subject knowledge I remember?
• What strategies did I deploy if I got stuck?
• Did I make links with some other learning that helped me here?
• How did I feel about this learning?

These student reflections will be completed at the end of a key piece of work, such as an edited piece of writing, a topic or a unit of work.

In addition to these reflective posts, the class teacher will add a few photos of the whole class, which acts as a ‘window into the classroom’ and allows parents to see the fun activities that the students participate in. In Years 3 and 4, these teacher posts will be once a week. In Year 5, these will be fortnightly. Students in Year 5 will also have the opportunity to share inquiry-based homework tasks via their Seesaw journal.

How to use Seesaw at Home?

For students of all ages, looking at Seesaw entries with your child is a great way to talk to them about their time at school. These conversations will also help to consolidate their learning. We encourage you to add short written or voice comments about your child’s learning and to share these with your child. Children really enjoy seeing or listening to these comments, and it helps them to feel proud of their achievements.

Parents and family members should always use their “Family Member” account when looking at Seesaw at home. This allows you to access the journals of all your children in one place, and it ensures that, when you add a comment, you are adding your comment as yourself and not as your child. In most cases, there is no reason for students to log into Seesaw at home with their student account. With this in mind, later this week, the Primary School is going to make it easier for parents to use the right account at home by disabling the Home Learning Codes for all the year groups that are not using Seesaw for homework. If this action logs your device out of Seesaw, just use your Family Member account to log in again.

Please note that from 27 October, Seesaw are updating its app logo and branding. Please see the image below:


If you are interested in understanding more about Seesaw, please click this link. We also have a Seesaw FAQ page on our Technology Guide for Parents website.

If you are having any issues accessing your Family Member account or if you think your account is not connected to your child’s journal, please contact Mr William Harrison.

Mr William Harrison, Primary School Computing Teacher & Technology Specialist
Ms Louise Banthorpe, Deputy Principal KS2