Enquiry Question Reminder:
In what ways can teachers share good practise to build confidence in delivering socially distanced and online learning during the Covid-19 pandemic?
- To what extent did you manage to answer your enquiry question?
I am not sure I have managed to come up with a solid answer, but I have a variety of thoughts and responses based on different people’s perceptions and preferences.
2. What have you learned about your learners throughout this process?
They genuinely take quite well to knowing everyone across different classes is doing the same thing – perhaps it offered solidity in a time of turbulence? Unsure.
3. Did anything take you by surprise (in a good or not so good way)?
Many people who used things like teacher twitter and social media to find and share lesson resources found themselves in the first lockdown feeling confident as people were learning skills that they perhaps already knew. By the second lockdown there seemed to be an online challenge of sorts in some communities about whose online teaching setup was crazier, who was doing the most interactive stuff which while fab, does not perhaps provide the equity for pupils across the board with less sophisticated technology that in my experience is the main challenge. This was a strange transition.
3. Has your enquiry process impacted on the wider school community at all?
At the beginning of the year I was given a teacher leadership role on sharing good practise, to try and set up some drop-in sessions purely based on talking about teaching and building confidence, as well as learning rounds, but these have not happened yet due to restrictions.
4. What are your intended next steps following the close of this programme? Do you have more work to do on this area or can you see new enquiry areas opening up
I would ideally like to take the strategies and advice I have learned to the whole school. I would like to set up a small network across the school of the best people to go to for advice on different challenges teachers may face i.e reinforcing positive behaviour, ICT, Teams specifically, creative learning ideas, pupils leading learning etc. Hopefully this will be something I can carry forward.
5. What are the implications?
Across the school hopefully there would be a rise in confidence because a number of people are feeling really demoralised at the moment. There are also a number of members of staff who are experienced but not promoted and there can be a little drop in confidence sometimes once you reach the top of the scale so giving these members of staff some go-to status would be beneficial. The school does not currently have any sharing good practise sessions so this could be an invigorating addition. Obviously, any improvement in staff confidence or addition to staff skillsets benefits pupils in a variety of ways so this could be an extremely positive thing.
