Learning in a hub model during COVID-19 by Rebecca Phillips

Griffithstown Primary Griffithstown Primary School is located in the beautiful area of Pontypool in South Wales. The town has lots of heavy industrial history, including railways (Pontypool Road station once had one of the largest coal marshalling yards in the UK), steelworks (BSC Panteg), gasworks (on VE day, 1945, the House of Lords was concerned with the second reading of the Pontypool Gas Bill), and the former workhouse now County Hospital. The school is set in stunning surroundings which enrich and enhance the learning and lives of the children that attend the school. This includes a school pond, built by staff and the community with the support of Keep Wales Tidy (historic environment service of the Welsh Government) and a canal jetty which leads directly onto the Monmouthshire and Brecon canal. This runs from the River Usk and Brecon feeder to the Newport Old Town Dock and Crumlin Wharf. The canal was originally constructed to transport coal, lime and agricultural products but was also used to export iron from the iron works in Blaenafon. This is now a World Heritage site, along with a section of the canal, which was granted this title in 2000. I have worked at Griffithstown Primary School for 3 years, where I have been given the opportunity to develop and expand my professional career. I currently work in Year Two and lead Professional Learning and the Curriculum for Wales 2022 across the school, which I am very passionate about.

Covid 19 Teaching across the country and world has changed massively over the past couple of months owing to the huge impact of Covid 19. Griffithstown Primary School shut on Friday 20th March. This is when we began our home learning journey. Suddenly, we are no longer teaching in the routine of our own classroom and school, surrounded by children and our friends. We no longer have the usual lesson planning, classrooms to prepare and books to mark, surrounded by the smiles and kind hearts of children to cheer up any situation and day. Education, as we know it, has dramatically changed. The work-load and long hours still remain, however, the interaction with the children is completely different, along with the planning and marking. The beaming faces of children that keeps us motivated each day is no longer lighting up classrooms, chatting, smiling, joking and laughing, making the days blissfully hectic. The children are still the smiling, happy children that we dismissed on the 20th March, but we now speak to them each day via laptops, computers and tablets. What would we have done without the advances in technology allowing us to do this? Working at a Hub School Hub schools have been set up across Wales to give childcare to key workers. In the West-Mon Secondary cluster, which Griffithstown Primary is a part of, there is one hub school. Initially we went to the hub school to meet the staff and have a meeting about the protocol and procedures in place, although this changed once the hub school opened. Owing to the number of children attending (fewer than was initially anticipated), each school in the cluster will support the hub school on a weekly rota basis. Griffithstown’s week commenced on 25th April. I was put forward to work on the Wednesday from 8am until 6pm, which I was happy to do. Although, I was very apprehensive about meeting the needs of the children, child protection and social distancing from the children and adults at the school, I need not have been at all worried. It was a relaxed day full of play and kindness. The play scheme staff, cleaners, caretakers and kitchen staff were all very welcoming and friendly. The day began at 7.30am, arriving at the school early to ensure I gained the information I needed before the children arrived at 8am. Meeting four of my colleagues there was great, we were able to catch up and exchange ideas of home learning that we had been completing, getting the day off to a great start. The children arrived at 8am, with their key worker parents signing them in and filling out the relevant forms, and the children bounced into the canteen where they had their breakfast. It was so lovely to see their innocent, smiling faces in this unnerving time, it gave me the biggest smile. Throughout the day, the children completed a range

of activities including sports and exercise, colouring, ICT games, art and crafts, poems and free play. The school is very well resourced, which made planning and learning a lot easier. I initially thought the day would be challenging, not officially teaching and with it being a ten-hour day, but the children responded well to the activities and the day was organised effectively. I left at the end of the day smiling and laughing with my colleagues which led to the drive home, realising how much I miss my class, the school, my friends and the whole atmosphere of our school. Home Learning The Welsh Government is regarded as being a worldleader in digital service delivery of education. The government has developed a range of digital support for teachers, parents/carers and learners. There are 5 key elements which support the delivery of education in Wales:

Hwb Cymru (Hub Wales)

Office 365 for all learners

Adobe Spark

A range of bilingual resources and support

Recent release of the ‘Stay Safe. Stay Learning.’ guidance document. Our school chose to use the Welsh Government support platform of Hwb. Hwb was created by the Welsh Government in 2012 as a teaching and learning platform to provide resources, tools and support for teachers, children and parents. It includes: Office 365 including Microsoft Teams, Minecraft: Education Edition, G Suite for Education including Google Classroom and Just2easy. Children are able to download Microsoft 365 and Minecraft Education for free through Hwb, which is important for children who do not have this package on their computer. Welsh Government’s Hwb has allowed teachers and children to access bilingual resources, developing Welsh language and culture. Hwb enables teachers to keep up to date with the new Welsh curriculum, Curriculum for Wales 2022, as it is updated as the curriculum develops and progresses. Wales has recently deployed Adobe Spark nationwide, allowing teachers and learners across Wales to access this resource for free. Enabling them to develop animations including webpages and videos. This resource has been used in some schools to continue their celebration assemblies or collective worship. Kirsty Williams, the Education Minister for Wales, published the Stay Safe. Stay Learning distance learning support on Monday 20th April to support all stakeholders with the impact of Coronavirus on education. This designated area on Hwb has 3 key areas: distance learning tools (which were mentioned above, for example Microsoft Office 365), resources and support for parents and carers. Currently the resources section only contains Post 16 learning resources but it is being updated daily to include more resources and information. In the ‘support for parents and carers’ there is a statement that parents/ carers are not teachers and that any support and encouragement they can offer is helpful. This section also explains Hwb and the tools it offers to learners. Hwb has been a huge help as Griffithstown Primary already used Hwb in our daily teaching, with each child having their own individual log in. As a platform we already use, this allowed us to be well prepared for home learning. The Senior Leadership Team at Griffithstown discussed and decided that Microsoft Teams was the best option to communicate and support learners to complete home learning. As many children were off school in the two weeks leading up to the school closure (because of self-isolation), teachers’ email addresses were text messaged to all parents and carers to ensure all children could access their Hwb logins. This was especially useful for the younger children as they had not memorised their logins, unlike upper Key Stage Two children. Each week assignments are set for the children by the teachers of each year group, developing previously learnt skills. I believe developing and consolidating previously learnt skills with the correct support will be more beneficial than trying to introduce new concepts, which learners and parents may find difficult to teach and develop, especially as many parents and carers

are working from home or are still working in their key worker roles. It is important to remember that parents/carers are not teachers too, however teachers are very grateful for any support and encouragement that they can provide for learners. Having many friends that are teachers as well as parents to young children just shows how difficult it is to keep ‘all of the plates spinning’ constantly. Each teacher at Griffithstown Primary is working each day to ensure support is given to the learners and their parents/carers to ensure each child is learning and developing a range of skills during this uncertain time. I believe it is important for children to develop a range of life skills whilst they’re in their home environment; skills like cooking, laying the table and tidying. At Griffithstown Primary, we are using a range of other platforms to communicate with students, which include Twitter, Flipgrid and Kahoot! We have been using Twitter as a way of communicating to stakeholders for a while at Griffithstown Primary, updating it with reminders of dates, useful resources and important information. The use of Twitter has been increased, with an expectation of every teacher tweeting ideas and resources three times a week. I initially thought this would be difficult, to think of three different ideas and resources to share each week but, as ever, the education community has strived to create and share so many amazing new resources. I am definitely tweeting a lot more than three times per week, as I come across so many exciting new tweets/ platforms each day. Ms Hall (my Year 2 colleague and our Foundation Phase Leader) and I have been using Flipgrid and Kahoot! as a section in our assignments set each week. Flipgrid has been used for children to record their views on subjects, which they have enjoyed. We have used Kahoot! as a fun quiz tool to test children on their knowledge after tasks have been set, for example a quiz on the Easter Story. Kahoot! is very interactive and plays music which the children love. Overall, the home learning journey is evolving each week to give the children the best education that we can from the safety of our homes, ensuring the children stay safe in their homes too. I think that the children’s ICT skills have improved and the children will be leading the way with regards to ICT in our future along with the development of ever important resilience and perseverance skills. The future of education is uncertain

at the moment but I know I will work as hard as possible to support children both academically and emotionally to the best of my ability both now and in the future. Learners Missing Out Unfortunately, some parents have not fully engaged with the resources available for home learning on Microsoft Teams, hindering their ability to support their child’s learning; however, this is a very small percentage. Some parents/carers have limited ICT and internet access, which can make online home learning very tricky. On Thursday 30th April, Kirsty Williams announced that £3 million would be available to support learning who do not have access to an electronic device or the internet at home. I hope this will allow all children to be able to engage and interact with online home learning and give them the opportunity to connect with their school friends and teachers. Many parents have asked for support with activities, which is a great positive as asking for help is a difficult thing to do when it is regarding your own knowledge. In the future, it would be of great use for parents and carers to have the opportunity to join basic skill knowledge of key subjects to support home learning. Lots of teachers have great ideas of workshops, including those that will facilitate and develop knowledge of technology and devices, which should help to support

children with their online education as it evolves after this pandemic. Future Education Education in Wales was changing massively with the implementation of Curriculum for Wales 2022. This was and is going to have a huge impact on Welsh education as we know it, which I hope is for the best! However, the effect of the Coronavirus on teaching is not one that was prepared for, nor could have been. I believe it will have developed children’s life skills, as well as educational skills. It has showcased how flexible teachers and leaders are and how they have been able to adapt and step up to the challenges that Covid 19 has brought. I hope this develops our education system even further, breaking down so many barriers and fears that teachers have for change.

Rebecca Phillips is a Year 2 Teacher at Griffithstown Primary School, Pontypool, Torfaen www.griffithstown-primary.co.uk