EDUCAT ION
“Students will be able to contact their teachers through functionalities such as the chat space”
same time as more pupils returned to school in the summer term. It was so successful that it may well be here to stay, enabling teachers with a particular passion or specialism to share their expertise more widely. Collaborative technology will be widely used at Impington Village College, too, spanning everything from after-college and project group work to one-to-one sessions between teachers and students. “Moving forward, parents and students will be able to contact their teachers through functionalities such as the chat space, and get quick and succinct answers and feedback to their questions and homework. We will be supporting students virtually via the house system, where larger gatherings won’t always be possible,” says Victoria Hearn. Increasingly, technology will also be coming to the rescue of children who are away from school, haven’t fully understood a topic or who are revising for an exam. In the past, pupils who were off sick might have been sent an email telling them what they’d missed and asking them to read a textbook to catch up. No longer, says Douglas Robb at Gresham’s. “Now we can say: ‘Log on to the Team’. You can watch what’s going on in the classroom, we’ll record the lessons and you can watch again if you didn’t quite get it. It will create a revision resource that I think is superior to anything we’ve had before.” But while a smarter, whole-school approach to technology seems set to lead to significant changes, other aspects of school life are also undergoing a significant rethink. At Felsted, classrooms will be more spread out, furniture
short-changed either, with ‘Super Saturdays’ pitting different teams from a single school against their Gresham’s counterparts in a range of sports, reducing the risk of spreading the virus while maintaining all the old sense of competition and excitement. In addition to the changes to these tangible aspects of school life, interactions between parents and teachers have also had a bit of a shake- up. Never before have parents been so involved in their children’s education on a day-to-day basis. If schools had the resources to organise online learning, as some did, mums and dads also had a unique insight into the nuts and bolts of what children learnt and how it was taught – the way their teachers planned their lessons and captured their children’s interest – and just how hard it was. Has it led to greater mutual respect? It could very well be the case. Head teachers report that already supportive parents have become even more so,
reduced to a minimum and teachers – because of social distancing – moving round far less than they normally would. House assemblies will be delivered online to avoid large gatherings, with year-group bubbles and boarding-house households used to organised pupils into groups for breaks, lunches, sports, activities and assemblies. “Some adjustments are required to manage this effectively,” says Chris Townsend. “As confidence grows, we will get closer to ‘normal’, but initially there will be a balance between ensuring safety while making sure that it does feel like ‘school’.” When it comes to life outside lessons, schools have come up with a range of solutions. St Faith’s children are learning new sports, doing more conditioning and athletics and working on their endurance, for example. Gresham’s, meanwhile, has rethought its chapel services and drama productions. Previously involving the whole school, they are now organised by year group. Sport lovers won’t be
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