Today is the first Monday of the Easter holidays and the start of the third week in lock down. Strangely, the last few weeks seem a bit of a blur. We have been teaching remotely since school closed and I am grateful for the structure it has provided. I have read a lot of mixed responses to teaching remotely, and I think every school should be entitled to decide how they do this themselves, but I am very proud of what our school has put in place.
Our students are already used to Google Classroom as it’s our main area for homework and when we were preparing for closure, our Google ‘gurus’ swiftly created a remote learning platform and in no time at all had all staff ready to go. This has meant, over the last two weeks, I have been able to ‘teach’ Y10 and Y11 through Google Classroom and Google Meet to our timetable. So far Y7/Y8/Y9 have had work posted online that they can work through during the day, but after Easter, Y9 will replace Y11 and will be taught in a more structured manner. I’m still processing and planning what this will look like and will update when sorted.
For those complaining about us trying to teach remotely, I say this: we know our students, we know our school and we know our staff. All of us are juggling life at home whether that include our own children or not, but one thing our children benefit from is routine. Even if that means Y9 log on P2 on Friday and all we do is chat, how can that be a bad thing? We spend more of our time with our students than our own children and we want to remind them that we are still here and that we care about them. We want to give them something outside of their game consoles and keep their brains ticking during this extraordinary time of our lives. I also like the idea of having to be ‘at work’ at 9am as it gives me purpose to get up and ready. During ‘school hours’ my own children get on with their numeracy, literacy and art tasks or play outside in our garden if the weather is decent, and once my online teaching is finished, we have our own time together. For us, this has meant we have been able to maintain some normality to our lives.
In our own time, we take our dog for a walk in the deserted field behind our home, we watch the godsend that is Disney+ and we spend time in our garden. We have also baked more in two weeks than I have had the time to do in two years. I should appreciate having the time to do this, and I have enjoyed it, but I cannot lie and say it is something I feel was missing from my life. I definitely think this lock down is a reminder that we need to slow down and spend more time together, but it is also a reminder of how much we actually enjoy our normal lives.
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