“We’ll have to close for two weeks,” our director told us on March the 12th. The previous week, all schools in Madrid had closed in an attempt to slow the spread of Covid-19. We suspected the rest of Spain might follow, so we quickly created Google Classrooms for all our students, or expanded our use of educational applications like ClassDojo, in an attempt to minimise the disruption to our teaching. We didn’t have much time, but we thought these measures would be a stopgap: we would soon be back at school.
The weeks wore on and the numbers of Covid-19 infections kept climbing. The Spanish government extended the state of emergency again and again. When the Easter break arrived, we realised there was a good chance we might not return to our beautiful school site until the next academic year. We had to do our best to make online education work for our students NOW. We would have to adapt our teaching strategies and our students would have to adapt their approach to learning. And we would need a lot of support from their families, especially with the younger children.Suddenly, as well as teachers, we became film-makers and youtubers, creating video lessons and explanations for our classes in a range of subjects. Many of us turned to PowerPoint and taught our students using slideshows. Every day, we put our lessons on Google Classroom or Class Dojo, shared links to educational web pages and send out documents and .pdf files full of instructions and resources. We initiated daily videochats with our classes, and our students had to take a crash course in the correct etiquette to use for online meetings. Our Teaching Assistants stepped in to help with the deluge of online marking and conduct one-to-one guided reading sessions.
It wasn’t easy for any of us, but we did the best we could. We are lucky that most of our students have access to the internet. We are also lucky that so many parents were prepared to engage with our efforts and that they gave us and their children the essential support we all needed.
And believe me, we know how difficult it can be, because many of us are also parents, having to juggle our online teaching with caring for our own children and supervising their education.
Online school did have plenty of fun moments. The photos and movies we all shared were astonishing in their variety, comedy and creativity. A virtual Sports Day might once havebeen regarded as impossible, but we pulled it off and it was a joy to see our children competing in the events via videos sent from home.We had end-of-term parties via videochat, and our secondary section held its annual prizegiving ceremony using a slideshow full of certificates and filmed messages of congratulation. When all’s said and done, there are many aspects of physical school that just can’t be replicated in a virtual environment, no matter how sophisticated. But, in many ways, this has been a valuable learning experience for everyone and while we hope we aren’t forced back into quarantine once more, that remains a possibility. And if we have to close our site again, we will carry the lessons with us to ensure that nobody has to miss out on their education and the sense that our school community can continue beyond the classroom.