Felpham Community College

In these unprecedented times, Felpham Community College staff are rising to the challenge of remote learning. The school are using the platform of Microsoft Teams to communicate with students, setting work and giving them feedback, all remotely and where this is not possible, students are being telephoned and work packs have been collected and delivered. Mr Read, a science teacher at the school, said: “All teachers are having to adapt to a new way of teaching, that being one to one dialog and email, to guide students through resources and lessons. Teachers are setting work which links to the revised daily timetable, so that students do not become overwhelmed and instead, feel a sense achievement. Work completed is marked and fed back using Microsoft teams and to make it more interesting, students are using the mark schemes to self-assess as well as gaining feedback from the teacher. Students too are developing a new independent way of working which will be a positive thing coming out of this crisis.”

Alongside this, FCC are open and offering critical care provision to all key workers’ children and vulnerable students. Along with completing work from teachers, students have been kept busy with cooking, sports, arts and science experiments. They also created bunting for the local community for VE Day. This has enabled them to keep a relatively normal routine going. Students have commented on the provision being different to normal school with specific lessons and are positive in the fact that they have developed new friendships. Holly Goodland (year seven), who is using the provision, said: “I miss my friends, the canteen, teachers and the interaction with other students. I have had to be more independent, which is a really good thing, as I need to be self-organised and keep to my own time limits. The provision the school runs has been brilliant and has allowed me to keep some sort of routine, but is good and strange, as you don’t have to wear school uniform. I always have lots of work to do and the teachers always get back to me if I have a question which is helping me to stay positive.”