Internet saves day for pupils

Music and video are helping secondary school pupils embark on their new timetables despite the coronavirus lockdown.

Schools are using the internet so pupils can work together remotely and keep connected with their friends and teachers.

Pitlochry High School is using its Twitter feed to provide daily updates to pupils and information on learning they can be doing at home.

Perth High School’s‘Stay at Home’science videos are also creating a buzz online. The videos, which show pupils carrying out safe science experiments at home, have been viewed more than 45,000 times on Facebook.

At Blairgowire High School, 171 children have registered for the Inspiring Digital Enterprise Award (iDEA) while at St John’s High School online cooking classes run by the home economics department are proving popular.

Donald MacLeod, acting service manager (secondary), said:“The coronavirus lockdown has created many challenges for secondary schools but has also created opportunity for creativity, innovation and, very importantly, some fun and entertaining ways of learning and engaging with young people during this time.

“I’d like to reassure parents also that schools are monitoring engagement in learning and working with young people and their parents to ensure all children continue to learn and progress.”

Primary schools are also rising to the challenge of learning from home. Inchture Primary School has been creating videos of what the pupils have been learning each week in order to help maintain the school’s community spirit.

Comrie Primary School has been exploring the topical theme of resilience and asked its pupils to film themselves singing or playing‘Somewhere Over The Rainbow’on musical instruments and created a video from their efforts.

At Grandtully Primary School pupils were asked to submit a reading and artwork linked to a poem which were then combined into a short film and posted on YouTube.

The school has also sent out “mystery seeds”to all pupils, including those due to start primary one in August.

At Burrelton Pruimary School, pupils have been taking part in everything from cooking to karate classes online.