Wellingborough School
We adapted, but the classroom is still the best place to be
Andrew Holman Headmaster Wellingborough School
Wednesday, March 18 last year is a date that will live long in my memory, as it was that evening that the Prime Minister announced that, owing to COVID-19, schools would be closed to all but vulnerable and keyworker children from Monday March 23. The successes Wellingborough School has
witnessed over the intervening 18 months were based on the fact that Boris Johnson’s declaration was not a total surprise and that we were, to some degree, prepared for the eventuality of being told to shut our doors. Teachers had all received some training in Microsoft Teams, a product which hardly
any of us had tried before 2020, and our older students were already experienced in using Firefl y, our virtual learning platform, to locate resources and manage the tasks they had been set by teachers. It is worth noting that the cost of these two tools is less than £20
per pupil, so we were not leaning on what the media would like to portray as private school largesse. Yes, this technology at the school end is useless if the children do not have the means at home to engage with it, which is why the existing knowledge of our families was helpful in loaning laptops to pupils. Whilst the teachers’ heart rates must have been sky high on that
Monday, our preparation meant that lessons happened immediately, and our adventure began. T ere were, of course, teething problems (interspersed with all sorts of hilarity as a teacher’s young child came into the room asking for a biscuit, or a pupil accidentally unmuting themselves at the most inopportune moment), but the project worked, mainly owing to the teachers replanning all of their sessions for remote delivery and having the positive mindset of tackling the problems they faced, and the students patiently working alongside their teachers and adapting to this new way of learning. So many lessons were learned across that summer term, helping us to make the process more eff ective for students and building the skill sets of adults and children as we went.
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ALL THINGS BUSINESS
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