Virtual lessons and phone calls from staff show schools giving vital support

From the afternoon of Friday, March 20 schools closed their doors in an attempt to slow the spread of Covid-19. The lockdown is set to be eased slightly with Prime Minister Boris Johnson indicating that primary schools will be a priority, but no date has been given yet for any school reopening its doors.

Schools, many of whom are also looking after the children of key workers, have had to adapt while parents have taken on the role of teacher.

A huge amount of pastoral support is also in place.

The overriding philosophy from Chichester Free School’s principal Louise New is that pupils simply need to do their best, with the understanding that all families are in different situations during lockdown.

Mrs New said: “This is a very challenging time – a time of crisis – and we take our duty as custodians to our pupils and our wider community very seriously.

“Looking after the mental health of the children while not being too pressurised on their parents is all part of that and teachers are encouraged to give lots of praise as well as house points for work that is completed well.

“I have had a huge list of praise emails to send every week still, showing how wonderful the engagement has been.”

Great Ballard School, in Eartham near Chichester, has set up an extensive virtual learning provision.

It has created a revised timetable providing children with interactive lessons where they can engage in teacher-led sessions with their classmates using Google Classroom and the Google Meet video call facility.

To give children a sense of normality it has tried to recreate a normal school day as much as possible including being present for registration, academic classes and sporting/extracurricular activities, enjoying lunch breaks and form time.

Additional provisions include a subscription to CENTURY Tech (an online learning tool which utilises artificial intelligence to set work appropriate to each child’s individual ability in English, Maths and Science), whole school singing sessions, wellbeing sessions and art lessons.

Staff at St James’ school in Coldwaltham have quickly adapted to their new role of online educators and have provided parents with a range of learning activities and challenges which have kept the children busy and occupied. Teachers have received much positive feedback and there have been some excellent photos sent through to the school showing the children involved in home schooling tasks. Nearly the entire school population has been regularly active in communicating with the school during this time.

“Praise must also be given to parents who have quickly adapted to the task of educators; no easy feat when parents are often working from home simultaneously,” recognised Jon Gilbert, headteacher at the school.

Jules White is headteacher of Tanbridge House School, near Horsham, and said one of the many measures to support children has been to hold video assemblies by leaders of year, weekly phone calls by pastoral staff to vulnerable students and direct letters home via school comms and other social media. This is on top of teacher support via email and online learning.

He said: “I write home two to three times per week to parents and have done bespoke video messages to all student in Years seven through to 11. They are on YouTube.”

With some parents facing the challenge of teaching their children while juggling work commitments, Mr White has this advice: “I have stated that students and families can only try their best. We emphasise the importance of routines, kindness, seeking support and look after each other. Screen time should be carefully monitored but staffing in touch with friends and family via social media is positive, as is regular exercise. I am exceptionally proud of our whole school community.”

Michael Ferry is the head of St Wilfrid’s Catholic School in Crawley. Its teachers have been in touch with students through email and sending messages via the electronic platform it is using to set work, Show My Homework. Form tutors, year leaders and teachers have made phone calls home to “check in” where necessary.

He said: “The vast majority of students have engaged in the work which has been set and staff have reported a number of students who are working extremely hard to do their best during this unusual way of working.”

At Durrington High School Google Classroom was set up by the school’s IT services team before the school closed.

Shaun Allison, head of school improvement, said: “The great advantage of Google Classroom is that it replicates the normal school day; when students log in at home the classes and lessons that they would normally have on their timetables are shown. Teachers are online at the same time the physical lesson would be taking place, setting the work and asking and answering questions in a similar way to how they do during a normal lesson.

“Rather than just simply setting work for students to complete, we are trying to fully embrace the idea of ‘distance teaching’. As one of only 32 research schools in the country, we have made sure that everything we know about effective teaching is still being implemented, just at a distance.

“A number of teachers are recording ‘Loom Videos’ to explain key ideas for students to use during lessons, to replace the traditional ‘teacher at the board’.”

Chris Woodcock, head of school, said: “It is so important to keep in touch with our school community during this uncertain time.

“As a school we are incredibly supportive of one another and very much have a ‘Team Durrington’ approach. We are very aware of how isolating this situation can be for our staff, students and their families and want to offer all the support we can to get through this difficult time.”

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