Kentish Gazette Canterbury & District
A NEW WAY OF LEARNING
From birthday sing-alongs via Skype, online P.E classes and a Youtube channel, schools are adapting to life amid the coronavirus outbreak.
Julie Derrick is CEO of Valley Invicta Academies Trust, overseeing the education of more than 5,000 pupils at three secondary and five primary schools in west Kent.
The trust has kept open two hubs, one at Aylesford Primary School and another at East Borough Primary School, for vulnerable children and those with parents as key workers.
On Monday, there were 60 pupils across both sites, but after the country went into lockdown that night, just 40 arrived the following day.
Mrs Derrick said technology has been key to ensuring children at home and at school can follow the same curriculum. “For our primary children we have set up online resources and for our secondary we have set up virtual classrooms,” she said.
“All the students are following their timetable and logging in at the right time, then having a live video conference with their teachers.
“It’s a huge undertaking but we are in control. All credit must go to our staff who are working above and beyond.” Chasey Crawford-usher, head teacher of Wateringbury Primary in Maidstone, had to wish her pupils goodbye over speaker phone on Friday because she is self-isolating due to a chronic lung condition.
The head, however, is still overseeing operations from her home, with nine students in class on Tuesday, down five from the previous day.
Staffing is one issue, as many teachers have their own school-age children at home and a rota has been set up to decide which employees will go into school.
Aims include setting up a Wateringbury Primary Youtube channel and ensuring children who receive free school meals get supermarket vouchers. Mrs Crawford-usher is worried the school’s closure could lead to the attainment gap widening between advantaged children and the less well-off. She explained that some families might not have a quiet space where the child can work, or parents might not be able to help their child reading and writing as much as they would like to. Speaking about the situation in the UK currently, she said: “I feel like we are in a nightmare and I have to pinch myself, but we are going to get through this together.”
When schools break up for the Easter holidays next week, about 50 ‘hubs’ are will open in Kent. Plans are being drawn up for centraalised sites across the county to look after vulnerable pupils and those with a parent in a critical job.
It would allow children to go to a school within three miles of their home - as opposed to their normal school - during the two-week break.