How a school with a ‘brilliant spirit’ is learning to adapt to lockdown life
THERE IS a vibrancy to the school community at Dixons Trinity Chapeltown, in Leeds, said assistant vice principal Ashley Jacobs, which cannot be dimmed even in the absence of live lessons.
While the majority of its students have been undertaking home learning since lockdown in March, he said, there has been a “brilliant” spirit from pupils and teachers alike. As the school pilots a tutoring catch-up scheme to support some of its students, it can only serve as a boost in ensuring a welcome return to settings in September.
From the start of lockdown, Mr Jacobs added, the school has been ready to rally anything it needed to get through.
“As a community we’ve been directly affected by the virus, we’ve always known we need to be really supportive,” he said.
“Inevitably, the lockdown is going to impact those who are disadvantaged the most. We will do whatever it takes, for as long as it takes. That disadvantage gap is only going to get bigger – we need to make sure that we support all our pupils.”
Every single one of the 550 students at the school was spoken to under lockdown, with weekly workbooks created to support home learning.
The school hub had 30 pupils in throughout, while a number of teachers also delivered lessons through the national Oak Academy to millions of children across the country.
There were food parcels and packages, delivered to doors, and work is continuing over the holidays in supporting the most vulnerable.
“It is obviously no substitute for face-to-face teaching,” said Mr Jacobs. “We had to think about those students at home. Some don’t have access to the internet. We have families with three children, and just one phone between them. We’ve had to buy bits to make sure they can access what they can. It wasn’t appropriate to deliver classes on online learning.”
From the start, the school had committed to fund the tutoring of 10 pupils and now, under a national pilot, 15 are being supported by The Tutor Trust.
“It’s brilliant,” said Mr Jacobs. “It’s a real asset for schools. All this information is going to feed in to us in September when we start to think about recovery.
“We can always say ‘it’s never enough’, no matter how many that number is,” he added. “Schools are trying their best with what they’ve got.”
We’ve had to buy bits to make sure they can access what they can.
Ashley Jacobs, assistant vice principal at Dixons Trinity Chapeltown.