Benedict Dunhill, new Head at Redcliffe Prep School in Chelsea, explains how the school took on a new approach to remote learning during the latest lockdown.
When the latest full lockdown was announced at the beginning of January, Redcliffe Prep School in Chelsea was well-positioned to quickly pivot its operations and to live-stream lessons to its pupils at home via Google Meet.
However, as new Head Benedict Dunhill explains, with children aged from two-and-a-half to 11 years-old, a more tailored, flexible and sophisticated approach was required.
“We recognised that a ?one-size-fits-all? approach wouldn?t work for our different year groups and in collaboration with Godolphin and Latymer – with whom we have an exciting new partnership – we went back to the fundamentals of what makes good teaching for primary-aged children,” explains Mr. Dunhill.
“As a result, we adapted our timetable so that the core subjects of Maths, English and Science are delivered in the morning with Arts and Humanities in the afternoons. Each lesson has a live element to it to ensure pupils and teachers continue to interact and collaborate (which is also important for student well-being), but we aim to strike a balance between live teaching and work which pupils can complete offline.
“When online, tools such as Answer Smash – where pupils type an answer to a question into the chat – ensure that all pupils are engaged in the learning, and Google forms and...