This week we returned to teaching and learning from home while our school came to terms with covid in our community.
Here is the initial start of an email I sent to my department earlier in the week.
At our department meeting, we shared how we could engage kids to come online and what our goals were the work. The team were positive and glad to have had a few weeks with kids to prepare them for what could come.
When connecting with my year 9 mentoring kids, I wanted to see if they were ok and to allow them to share their concerns. They were bored and wanted to come back to school. On average, I had about 6 of the 23 kids come regularly.
The kids were struggling to keep up with what was due and when so I created a simple tracking sheet for them to help.
My other year 9 class that I have for Social Studies had a few more students in it and we spent much of our time this week designing what they wanted to do in the times we met online. We played kahoot, socrative and I allowed them to go into breakout rooms to work on tasks together.
On average I only saw 4-5 of my senior students when classes were on, which was really disheartening. If they weren’t sick themselves, many of them were taking care of siblings and family members who were sick, with a few having to go out and work. I continued to let them know that I will be checking work and checking in on them continuously until we got back to school and a few students responded feeling reassured.
On reflection, all in all, the week seemed to run smoothly. We knew it was coming but you don't actually believe it until it happens. I know I need to find more ways to connect to the kids who don't come to online class but at the same I accept that their lives as we know it will continue to be disrupted by covid.
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