Are we ready?

When schools closed their doors back in March, my first thought was for the students. I wondered if they were safe. I wondered if they had adequate means for getting meals and access to the necessary tools to continue their learning. 

Learning retention, whether online or not, is all about the quality of the lesson and the resources that support learning. It is not about having the best cables, microphones, lights, and cameras.

We are ready to support our students transitioning to their next grade or course, acknowledging their prolonged absence from the classroom. We will include assessments to identify students' strengths and gaps in learning at Key instructional times to ensure students have fundamental building blocks in advance of new content. 

Indeed, to align with physical distancing, our school is not planning field trips and activities requiring group transportation, until public health data suggests otherwise. School assemblies or other large gatherings will be avoided but virtual options will be offered instead of in person gatherings. 

Remote learning will be available for all students with access to learning materials posted online to support both synchronous and asynchronous learning opportunities during the day. 

Making time to explore and learn about our students' experiences, particularly home-learning experiences, will be an important part of this back-to-school initial transition: both for pastoral and teaching and learning reasons. Our students need time and space to readjust to school-based learning. This is the reason why this transition will be filled with as much anxiety as the first day of the school year. 

We need to provide our students multiple opportunities to explore their home-school experiences to support this transition. We can use class discussions during morning circles; while writing, poetry, music, art, dance, drama would all provide authentic therapeutic opportunities. 

We all learn by thinking about, and reflecting on situations we have experienced. For example, we can provide to our students a questionnaire and they have the choice to tick between two smileys (Didn't like or loved) for each question: 

• We have been staying from school.
• We have not been seeing our friends face-to-face.
• We have been doing things with our families.
• We are not stand too close to others.
• We have bot been visiting family. 
• We have been washing our hands for 30 seconds.

Students can also draw pictures or write about their feelings and experiences during self-isolation. Some students may have lost family members to the disease caused by the coronavirus, and some schools may have lost staff members. Most often asking students to talk about their experiences is a good idea. 

To end with a more hopeful note, the reopening of the school after the crisis provides an unparalleled opportunity to rethink the day-to-day experiences of students and teachers. With students having had to take a lead role in their own learning and teachers having had to adapt to remote teaching, I hope that upon returning to school the interactions between teachers and students will be more engaging, with teachers spending less time teaching and more time facilitating students' inquiry and problemsolving skills. 

For example, rather than just learning facts about the French Revolution, students should learn about the French revolution as a way to understand issues like world conflict or poverty or the struggle between church and state. Without those connections, I am not surprised that so many students have trouble naming things they learned early on that still have meaning today.