Helping students stay on top of homework

“I have never been prouder to be a teacher. It has been incredible to see how well people have pulled together.”

Matt Lovegrove sits at home with his dog, a far cry from the ICT suite at Desborough College where he would normally be working.

As head of computing at the Shoppenhangers Road school, Matt would typically be teaching up to 150 students, but as is the case across the country, classrooms have moved to the home for most pupils.

Schools remain shut as another wave of COVID-19, and contagious new variants, put hospitals under strain.

After opening for spells in between lockdowns, and with primary schools returning for just one day at the start of the new year term, it is fair to say the education system has been fairly disrupted over the last 10 months.

This has adversely had an impact on young people’s education and forced schools to dive straight into the unknown.

“We are trying to get them up and moving,” Matt said, adding that all of Desborough’s year 7 boys have each been given skipping ropes to help with this.

“We are running days where we encourage students not to use their devices and do something more practical.”

The debate over students having access to working laptops has made national headlines, and Matt praised Desborough’s efforts in ensuring this has not been too much of a problem at the Maidenhead school.

He explained how staff check in with students who are not attending lessons and find out why this is. If required, laptops will be picked up by staff and fixed.

While the aim is to ensure every pupil eventually has their own working device, Desborough has benefitted from 50 new laptops as part of a Government scheme.

“There are families where you have got three kids sharing a tablet. And we have had kids trying to complete written assignments on a mobile,” Matt said.

“We have got really good at working out who is not joining in with lessons, and why.”

The attention to detail seems to be paying off, with a 95 per cent attendance record in online classes at Desborough. The school is also welcoming 30 key worker students physically.

But the pandemic has not been easy on anyone, and the school has had to face challenges like all the others, including staff being sick with the virus, and ensuring teachers get used to technology, too.

Matt explained: “The Government have chopped and changed but I think schools have thought: ‘we are going to put our kids first and do what is best for them’.

“I have never been prouder to be a teacher. To see how we have come together as a whole school, bearing in mind we have some teachers who are less confident with technology than others, it has been incredible to see how well people have pulled together.”

The question of staff safety is a big one. Matt says he feels safe with the way things are now but did have concerns about previous Government plans to reopen so soon after the new year.

The Government eventually U-turned and now hopes to reopen schools on March 8.

“I do now feel safe,” Matt said, adding that he wants to get all students back as soon as it is possible.

“For that first day when the primaries went back, the thought of going back when the new variant was there wasn’t great.

“I was quite active in the community to put pressure on the Government to stop schools going back. It [the virus] was spreading like wildfire.”

As COVID-19 continues to hit the UK, schools remain closed. The education sector has had to deal with a variety of challenges, Government u-turns and changes to working that many would not have expected or prepared for. Reporter Kieran Bell spoke to Desborough College teacher Matt Lovegrove for an insight into life behind the Microsoft Teams lessons.