As a community magazine, we depend very much on the community for input on the magazine, content articles and distribution. With the start of school openings, and in putting the Focus on Education section together, I reached out to a few parents with children attending various schools in and around the Borough of different ages.
In the feedback I received, nearly all schools dealt well with the immediacy of the sudden change in school closures and were able to put in place different forms of continuation in learning. Some schools set out daily and weekly tasks that needed to be completed and some had gone straight into an online learning structure. The attitude of the school and the teachers administering the online learning was vital to counter act the difficulty many children faced including isolation, anxiety and motivation.
The first lockdown April – July 2020, seemed to be more challenging for children and schools. Sudden changes in lifestyle affected children differently and several found the lack of social interaction difficult. Though the warmer weather and ability to go outside was in place, there were challenges to daily tutor time video calls along with virtual problems and the need for positive messaging through social media channels. Some parents did struggle with a shortage of laptops and low or intermittent broadband speed that impacted learning. Phones and ipads were used although not ideal in holding concentration levels.
The second lockdown January – March 2021 was much easier in general. Schools had realised what worked best for teachers. Children also seemed more relaxed with the situation and easily adjusted to the change of going back to online learning. Schools that had originally set out daily and weekly task moved over to online learning which went much smoother. Although the second lockdown was harder on kids with it happening over the winter, some schools had included physical activity as part of the online plan.
I asked parents if they felt their children will suffer going forward from lockdown and nearly all said no. One parent said, ‘I think KS4 students will need to work hard to get to the level they would have been at had they been in school but it is achievable and schools will assess knowledge to help with learning gaps. Younger students will have time over the coming years to ‘catch up’.’
Hopefully, these challenges are now behind us and we can now find gaps in lockdown learning to enable students to all be on the same level and get back to education as we know it.