Access to technology’ check-up

As the closure announcements in China were made during Chinese New Year holidays, many staff and students were scattered all over the world and were in no rush to return, reluctant to be faced with lockdown in their own homes. One of the first things that Paul Kelly, of The British International School Shanghai, (BIS Puxi), did was do a stocktake of what access to technology everybody had. It quickly became apparent that many had left their iPads and laptops at home, but they nearly all had mobile phones with them, so it was crucial that any technology they used would have to work well on a mobile platform.

Ian Lee, IGCSE Coordinator at the Yew Chung International School Shanghai (YCIS Pudong) said: “a few years ago we invested in iPads for all students to give them access to learning content; a lot of our remote teaching resources were already established; this is certainly paying dividends now!”

For UK schools, concerns have been expressed that offering online learning opportunities will further extend the gap between the haves and have nots. Young people who want to continue to study may, in some households be competing with parents and siblings for access to devices. However, according to a 2020 newspaper article about recent research by a leading research company, “by the age of 11, 90% had their own device, and phone ownership was ‘almost universal’.  So whilst some students may still struggle, offering learning opportunities that can be completed on any platform may end up being the fairest solution … especially if schools are proactive in offering loan schemes during the Covid-19 closures, such as Bewdley School in Worcestershire.

Getting the work to the students: having a suitable ‘wardrobe’ to fill with ‘learning clothes’.

Many schools have ramped up their usage of tools such as Google Classrooms to create and send lessons to their students or have pressed underused virtual learning environments (VLEs)back into service.

The British School of Kuwait (BSK) had already structured their learning and assessment around their VLE, so when they were given such short notice of the school’s closure this formed the basis of their remote learning strategy.

Paul Kelly of BIS Puxi realised that their Microsoft Office 365 contract included 1 Terabyte of Cloud storage, so he set up separate Cloud spaces for different departments, into which they could upload all their learning materials.

Autonomous learning: providing ‘the clothes’ in the ‘wardrobe’

The next step was to find online learning resources that would allow the students to learn relatively autonomously, and potentially with limited access to technology. Equally important for many was to find a resource that had not only had proven impact but also a solid history of high usage outside the school classroom (i.e. one that was quick and easy to access and appealing to use, given the limited opportunities for teacher training when working remotely.) This is where GCSEPod came in.

Quality teaching relies heavily on fast formative assessment, teaching is dynamic and the teacher will react to the subtle cues students give off when new concepts are being explained. The current situation has deprived teachers of this and led to much more summative assessment, normally in the form of marking. Platforms like GCSEPod, which offer summative assessments, such as end of unit tests, marked by the computer go some way to closing the gap between normal practice and the present situation.”

BSK staff found that the short three to five-minute video Pods have provided the learning, and the question banks a means to assess the students’ level of understanding. “We can’t see their exercise books but we can see which Pods they’ve watched, how they have performed on the assessments and whether I need to step in to give them additional support,” explains David. “It’s proving to provide a real development hump for the students, while cutting down on teacher work-load.”

Ian Lee added, “Our students are watching the videos, and then going through the test banks. Depending on the results of the tests they then know whether they need to watch further video Pods.

The pros and cons of live contact

During a recent virtual assembly, Ian Lee at YCIS Puxi asked his students about their frustrations. The issue they have all felt is isolation; being away from their friends. Suddenly losing casual contact with their peers has hit many of them harder than might have been thought.

More surprising was the loss of their ‘private life and work’ outside the school environment. School gave them the freedom to be someone other than someone’s child, a real person in a real environment, and it has been a wrench, even for some of the most determinedly non-academic pupils.

BSK took a half-way house approach, combining pre-created questions with an opportunity to link with teachers via Google Hangouts. Their science teacher, David Williams, explains: “We wanted to maintain as much of a school timetable as possible, so since the school’s closure, all staff have been using  they use the VLE every day to give the students instructions on their learning objectives. Each lesson is an hour long, with set learning objectives, study material and follow up activities. While the VLE gives the learning a level of structure we also allow the students to be flexible; some work into the night while others start before the school day at eight o’clock. They seem to be flourishing with the level of flexibility and trust they are being given.”

During the scheduled Hangout time the BSK students can join the conversation to follow the teacher’s guidance and ask questions as they would in a normal classroom setting.

Solving the problems

Of-course none of this has happened without several challenges.

From forgotten passwords written in diaries left in lockers in locked schools, to bandwidth issues and losing connections, it hasn’t been easy.

Fortunately, GCSEPod had the foresight to ramp up our IT infrastructure to cope with the unprecedent  spikes in usage. Sadly,   other online learning resources, ;looking for a land grab of schools by offering free now/pay later plans did not see this coming and have crashed repeatedly under the pressure. We’ve also temporarily reassigned some staff into support roles, helping students quickly find forgotten passwords and answering the simpler technical queries, leaving our experienced Pod Up team free to help our schools get to grips with entirely remote learning.  Ian Lee of YCIS Pudong says:

Paul Kelly warned schools of another problem they experienced. “Students would normally receive merits, verbal or written, for their work, but this is harder when they are working remotely. The solution we’ve found is that GCSEPod provides a list of the top student users, so I’ve been able to write letters to the parents and students in recognition of their high study scores; right now it’s all about motivating them to continue to learn and  recognise that it’s no fun working from home.

In the rare incidence where set homework is not completed by a student, the policy at BIS Puxi is to leave it for a couple of days. If by the third day nothing has been received, the teacher will send the student a nice email to remind them of the set tasks. If still nothing is received the year leader will get involved and telephone the parents.”

The positives:

We are constantly surprised and delighted by the extraordinary usage and had superb feedback from our subscriber schools across the world, but during the closures, this has been even more noticeable.  As our name suggests, our main content focuses on supporting GCSE and IGCSEs and when the exams this summer were cancelled, we wondered whether usage would slump. Nothing could be further from the truth.

Monday 23^rd March (the first official day of UK school closure) marked the highest day of usage of GCSEPod ever… even higher than at our normal usage peak in the middle of the exam period.

Teachers of Year 10 students also recognise the uphill struggle they will face next year to complete the required work if learning does not continue now, so are determined to do as much as they can to continue learning. Year 11s recognise that continuing to study will be invaluable to them in preparation for their next move, whether that be continuing their academic life, or moving into training within the post school sector.

Paul at BIS Puxi agrees: “If there has been one benefit from all of this it has been for my staff to learn how to better embrace technology in their teaching. Many of my staff have said this has been the best CPD they have received in years. I suspect the next cohort of students coming through at BISS will benefit greatly from the learning the staff have undertaken over the past two months.”

Finally, Ian at YCIS shares a feeling we have heard many times from our schools, when he concludes, “while quickly becoming adept at using new technologies, the need for adaptability and ingenuity has never been greater. YCIS staff and students have proven to be determined, innovative and resilient. This situation has brought out the best in our school community. It has certainly been challenging but it’s actually been a very positive learning experience for us all.”

Colleagues, there is light at the end of the tunnel.

Take care, 

Gill Key, GCSEPod Director

International and Special Projects