Elmgrove Primary School and Special Educational Needs, Beersbridge Road, Belfast, Northern Ireland. Photo by K. Mitch Hodge on Unsplash
As English schools return this week, this final blog in the ‘Education and COVID-19’ series features extracts from interviewees who have contributed throughout the series. The interviewees are not a representative sample of the education community; they are those friends, teachers, parents and students I could contact at short notice. Nevertheless their commentary provides invaluable personal insights into many of the ways COVID-19 has affected education, from those who have been experiencing the challenges first-hand. I am hugely grateful to them for their time and insights and greatly admire their forbearance in a very difficult situation.
School Provision
As noted in previous articles the education and pastoral care schools have provided remotely have varied hugely both within countries and between countries. As these quotes show, schools’ preparedness, provision, pastoral care and homework tasks have all varied widely. Some children’s education has continued virtually undisturbed, while others have been left far behind.
Preparedness
‘We prepared a week ahead of lockdown. We were ready. We were quite a tech-savvy school.’
Teacher, Private School, London, UK
‘The school was not well prepared for online learning. Most of the teachers at the school can only handle a basic use of computing. There is not enough operational computer equipment. Finally, most of the students do not have a computer at home, but they do have a smart cell phone with internet connection’
Teacher, Girls Public (State) School, Hualpen, Chilé
School days
‘I thought with remote learning we would have more time but we haven’t, the days are just as long’
‘Gemma’ (12) Girls Boarding School, UK
‘We have the same periods, the same lessons times’
Teacher, Private School, London, UK
‘Until 2 weeks ago [it was just] homework on a (rubbish) app; no actual teaching’
Parent, West Yorkshire, UK
‘Mondays and Fridays are days when I don’t have any work to do...We, as a human resource, are being paid full time but there’s very little accountability, you only put in the work you’re supposed to.’
Teacher, State School, London, UK
Safeguarding and Pastoral Care
‘If you’re in a state school there are safeguarding issues...no teaching is happening online in Wales because it’s a blanket ‘no’ from the committee’
Teacher, State School, London, UK
‘Online, the pastoral work has become very passive and if someone is having an issue, I wouldn’t know about it’.
Teacher, State School, London, UK
‘It is much easier to read a kid in a lesson when you can see their face. Teaching from home you don’t see them walk through the door’.
Teacher, Private School, London, UK
‘[The school has provided] zero pastoral care’
Parent, West Yorkshire, UK
Homework
‘I’ve had the same amount really. I struggled a little at first but now I find it’s fine.’
‘Gemma’ (12) Girls Boarding School, UK
‘It’s too much! I think somehow they expect us to do better. My friend sent me a message saying ‘I think this is what hell would look like’!’
‘Leon’(9) Day School, London, UK
‘Don’t do any optional homework...that’s a trap!
‘Leon’(9) Day School, London, UK
‘It has made us reassess homework – we have set less homework and found the kids to be more sparky and alert and less stressed’
Teacher, Private School, London, UK
‘When you put work online, you’ll still only get...on a good day 50% of people giving the work in’.
Teacher, State School, London, UK
Teachers
Teacher have faced multiple demands during the COVID-19 pandemic. The have had to adapt to new ways of teaching remotely that they have been unprepared for and often under-resourced to deliver. As these quotes show teachers have rethought how and what they teach, and have reflected on how their teaching environment has changed. Finally, both teachers and learners reflect on the positives and negatives of their new reality: online learning.
Changes to teaching style
‘I feel as though I’ve gone from being a classroom teacher to being a Radio 2 DJ!...Like the listeners of Radio 2, you don’t know if they’re listening, or doing the ironing or playing computer games, or whether they’re actually taking part!’
Teacher, State School, London, UK
‘Teacher assessments have made teachers feel more valued. Professional judgement has played a part this year where in previous years it hasn’t.’
Teacher, Private School, London, UK
‘As an English teacher I’ve had to change from using a lot of discussion to a more lecturing style. My A Level class have said they’ve really missed the discussion.’
Teacher, Private School, London, UK
‘I feel that this has brought school communities together...There is a much greater understanding of the importance of wellbeing. There is far more care about how people talk to each other.’
Teacher, Private School, London, UK
Online learning: positives
‘I’m doing online lectures at the university and it works very well. It is very similar to what happens in a normal class.’
University Lecturer, Santiago, Chilé
‘It is possible to obtain an instantaneous measurement of the learning achieved...Also, students now have a different vision of technology...It is no longer just for playing or "chatting" with friends, now it has an educational use.’
Teacher, Girls Public (State) School, Hualpen, Chilé
‘There’s no-one to say, ‘I don’t understand’. So it’s made me think about how abstruse I am as a teacher!’
Teacher, State School, London, UK
‘I feel as though the more academic, diligent children have liked it, they haven’t had to wait for the less able children. The less able children have struggled.’
Teacher, Private School, London, UK
Online learning: negatives
‘If I’m stuck on something I would normally look at the board but if I’m stuck I can go the whole lesson and not understand it.’
‘Leon’(9) Day School, London, UK
‘‘Matias’ finds it quite boring. For him half an hour looking at the computer is a lot!’
Parent, Santiago, Chilé
‘For little children…it’s really impossible because it’s super boring on the computer and it’s so much work for the parents.’
Parent, Santiago, Chilé
‘Digital Divide’
As with previous articles, these comments show how the COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated the stark ‘digital divide’ between those pupils who have the resources and skills to keep learning and those - often children already disadvantaged - who have not had the resources to keep up and who have fallen further behind.
‘I think a lot of the progress of narrowing the gap..is being undone every day. Private schools who are getting lessons every day are going to be doing the same exams as our pupils in a years time.’
Teacher, State School, London, UK
‘Most girls who experience learning difficulties during the COVID pandemic fall into three main areas, those who lack of access to the internet or a computer or mobile phone, due to financial problems, those students (whose parents are working) that are left in the care of grandparents, uncles or aunts, who do not have technological knowledge or devices and those who lack the motivation.’
Teacher, Girls Public (State) School, Hualpen, Chilé
‘I’ll give you two examples of girls who struggle:
Student A) It is not possible to send digital material to her, because the parents have a bad relationship with each other and do not deliver material to their daughter.
Student B) This student has special educational needs...and does not have support at home to carry out the tasks sent digitally by teachers.’
Teacher, Girls Public (State) School, Hualpen, Chilé
‘For a lot of the children in the short seasonal labour migration in India, for example, they are already trying to catch up a lot of the time. Long closure could just mean that it precipitates them from teetering on the brink to just falling out.’
Caroline Dyer - Professor Of Education and International Development, University of Leeds, UK
Education system: leadership, policy, resources
Teachers reflect on their personal experiences of the impacts of nationwide decision-making regarding education policy, leadership and resources during the COVID-19 pandemic.
‘[Online learning is] painfully under-resourced as a sector as a whole. This area is like a blindspot where people put on a blindfold and shoot, saying: ‘just give them a laptop and that should solve things’.’
Teacher, State School, London, UK
‘The Department of Education...keep changing the goalposts. Systematic inertia is stopping the decision makers that I’m answerable to making decisions.’
Teacher, State School, London, UK
‘I don’t think Edtech is a proxy for the important role for teachers. Edtech – recourse to open learning - really requires a very good rationale behind it. It’s not something you can just wheel out. What we’re doing in the UK is a quickly cobbled together short-term alternative.’
Caroline Dyer - Professor Of Education and International Development, University of Leeds, UK
Parents
The comments below show how parents have struggled with the multiple demands of both home-schooling and parenting whilst working.
‘Working from home, with kids, is a big challenge. I hardly find time for anything else.’
Parent, Santiago, Chilé
‘The extra demands on us are massive. Now that we’ve realised we’re basically on our own for the foreseeable future, we’ve got a lot more serious about the need for a serious plan but it means we are really flat out.’
Parent, West Yorkshire, UK
A new future for education?
As schools return and seek to move through phases of ‘recovery, rehabilitation and reconstruction’ students and educators reflect on recovery plans and give their views on how COVID-19 might affect the future of education.
‘I miss all the ‘schooly vibe’! The chatting, the dorms, the classroom, the lunch hall, the libraries…all of it!’
‘Gemma’ (12) Girls Boarding School, UK
‘We just need to be prepared in September...we have a chance to see this coming and do something about it, to be preemptive rather than reactive.’
Teacher, State School, London, UK
‘Teachers have been villainised which is unfair. We obviously want to be in the classroom’
Teacher, Private School, London, UK
‘Schools should not reopen this 2020 school year. Adequate safety equipment does not exist to ensure the protection of everyone in the school.’
Teacher, Girls Public (State) School, Hualpen, Chilé
‘What is going on here is the assumption that all this is temporary….Online learning is being used to cover up a temporary gap.’
Caroline Dyer - Professor Of Education and International Development, University of Leeds, UK
‘None of this crisis has pointed towards any kind of thinking that there would necessarily be a permanent retreat from face-to-face teaching. Wouldn’t that be a necessary step before deciding that you want to do things differently?’
Caroline Dyer - Professor Of Education and International Development, University of Leeds, UK
‘GCSE and A Levels - we are asking: are they necessary?’
Teacher, Private School, London, UK
AUTHOR
SAM WILSON LEADS THE WYESIDE EDUCATION WORK AT WYESIDE CONSULTING. SAM HAS AN MA IN INTERNATIONAL EDUCATIONAL LEADERSHIP AND POLICY FROM THE UNIVERSITY OF LEEDS, SEVEN YEARS TEACHING EXPERIENCE ACROSS YORKSHIRE AND IS A FUTURE EDTECH FELLOW WITH THE ODI.
Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of Wyeside Consulting Ltd.
This article is the last of five looking at education and COVID-19:
1. Education and COVID-19: the impact in England
2. Education and COVID-19: the impact on vulnerable children worldwide
3. Education and COVID-19: the response in England
4. Education and COVID-19: ideas for a fairer, greener, more youth-centred future
5. Education and COVID-19: voices from the frontline
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