Assistant Principal / Leader of Pedagogy
Mr Stephen Chapman
Lockdown Learning Reflections - Week 10 Term 3 2021
We made it out of lockdown! Well, there is still uncertainty around with the fear we will need to go back into lockdown any day, though. Here we are ending our first week back at O’Connor as an entire school community. We have, as the staff, been impressed at the attitude and attendance of our students this week. We wondered if families might take the extra week as holidays. But there have been less absences than normal, which is great. We were also worried that students might take some time to settle back into the routine of school. Students have been, on the whole, happy, hardworking and settled. I have been thinking this week about my reflections on learning during lockdown. How did it go? What worked? What didn’t? These questions have different answers for different students and even different schools. It’s time to reflect on what it was like for our students, parents and staff at O’Connor.
One of the first reflections we have all made, as teachers, is that there seems to be three groups of students in each class. 1. Students who thrived in lockdown, doing all the required work. 2. Students who have done nothing and learnt nothing about their coursework for 5 weeks, and 3. Students in the middle, who have learnt some but not all. This realisation was vital for us as we went into this week's learning (Week 10). We needed to meet the students where they are at. We asked ourselves these questions: What do we ask the students to work on who are ready to go on? What do we do in class to help the others catch up? Most importantly, what is the really important content and skills that need to be learnt? What sections can be left out because they are not vital? I am so proud of the teachers at O’Connor. From what I have seen and heard this week, our amazing staff have helped their classes with the transition from lockdown to face-to-face learning brilliantly. They have differentiated their lessons to best suit the individual needs of their students. Well done, team!
Mr McCann working with Georgia and Shanae yesterday in Year 8 Maths
One of the biggest reflections we have all seen during lockdown in the different ways our young people have dealt with it. The mental and physical health of our students vary dramatically in the best of times, but when we are under stress and the usual routines are lost, this often reaches crisis point. We have seen this in our students at O’Connor during lockdown. If we have noticed some of our students struggling, I can only imagine what it has been like for parents and carers at home! Mrs Bell, our Leader of Learning for Pastoral Academic Care and Wellbeing, shared an article with all staff last week called Student wellbeing: Understanding different COVID-19 experiences by author Helen Street. In that article, Helen explores the importance of acknowledging the different experiences students had during online learning. Here is one teachers reflection:
“While teaching my classes online, some students who struggled in class have thrived, submitted their work on time and to a good quality. Others are really missing the collaboration in class and bouncing ideas off others. Some are loving the unstructured day and being home with families, and yet others are struggling with the home environment and relationships are strained” (p 1, Street, 2020).
The article also mentions the importance of healthy relationships at any time, especially during lockdown. We have worked hard here at O’Connor to keep the relationships going for all our students over these past five weeks. This included zooms where people can just chat. It wasn’t all about academic learning. Students were encouraged to talk to each other, which seemed to happen more readily when they were in smaller breakout rooms. The staff at O’Connor worked hard to check on the wellbeing of our students, especially the ones who were not joining in the lessons offered. It was incredible to see how much effort went into phone calls and emails. Some students came into school to catch up on work or simply to connect with friends and teachers.
I can’t reflect on these weeks of lockdown without thinking about the Year 12 Trial Exams and Year 11 Final Assessments. We went ahead with these important assessment tasks in a very different format. The students completed these tasks at home using Zoom, Google Classroom and Google Docs. They went well from our perspective but I wanted feedback from the students. At the time of publishing, 37 students gave their feedback via a Google Form survey. It seems clear that they generally liked doing these assessments this way, although there were some students who did not agree. Here are some comments:
Positive: What did you like about doing assessments like this?
- Less pressure, was able to get help instead of being stuck with nothing
- The ability to find sources
- They were open book so it wasn’t as stressful
- By yourself and no one around you to distract you so you can focus
Negative: What didn't you like about doing assessments like this?
- I’m not used to typing, I kept changing my sentences and paragraphs which took up heaps of my time when in a normal exam I would write something and just leave it and it didn't feel like an exam so I wasn't as focused
- No negatives I loved it
- It doesn’t feel like an exam. It doesn’t prepare us for the HSC.
Key:
1 = I loved doing these assessments online
5 = I hated it and would rather do all exams in person at school
That’s enough for now. Thanks again for reading. I’m sure you are now reflecting on your own experiences of the last few weeks. As always, please make contact with us here at O’Connor if we can help in any way.
References
Student wellbeing: Understanding different COVID-19 experiences. Street, H., May 28, 2020. Teacher Magazine. Retrieved from: https://www.teachermagazine.com/au_en/articles/student-wellbeing-understanding-different-covid-19-experiences
Mr Stephen Chapman
Assistant Principal - Leader of Pedagogy
Never stop learning; for when we stop learning, we stop growing - Jack Lewman
