Insight: primary school September 2021∣Youth Hong Kong
Half-day schooling a new start Face-to-face classes resumed in September on a halfday basis but manpower issues and problems with online teaching modes remain at the forefront of principals' minds.“While experience has been gained and the school has made strides in adapting to the world of online learning, significant difficulties remain,” says Dr Tse. To add to the stress, IT skills have become a foundation stone of teaching so various online communication channels were established early on during the pandemic. “Rules, including login for online classes, roll call, use of cameras and deadlines for handing in homework are essential, but teachers cannot respond immediately to all pupils and they also need to communicate with the parents if there are problems and then follow up,” she points out. “The older students have been using the school’s selflearning platform for up to five years, including Google Classroom and Google Sites, so the transition was smoother than expected,” Dr Tse explains. “Before class or shortly after, teachers upload videoed lessons and PowerPoint slides with important teaching points and worksheets but the videoed lessons must have high quality, teaching content that is interesting and appropriate.”
Long-term, continuous use of Zoom will affect health so the daily limit is two hours.
Support for challenging times Apparently, the pressure on teachers has been immense. “Offering support to teachers has been of prime importance,” Dr Tse stresses. “Fortunately, we have foundation training and experience in this field so we have set up a lot of workshops to equip teachers with the latest IT skills and have been able to hire three more teachers.” If there are problems in the implementation of online learning, there is also a team of ICT teachers on hand to offer help immediately, with both software and hardware. Some of the school’s teachers act out stories for students in order to stimulate their interest in learning at home. Although it takes a lot of time, teachers find it worthwhile. Creating online assignments is another technical task that teachers need to face every day. “Although all this ‘virtual’ work takes up quite a lot of time, it provides a good opportunity for the school to reflect and explore how e-learning can be integrated in the future,” Dr Tse remarks.
Learning with online timetables For those entering Primary One, an “Adaptation Month” was arranged in September, with foundation courses that included phonics and pinyin. “Group games, singing songs and life education allow students to integrate into school life while teachers observe their language abilities before formally dividing them into different classes a month after the start of term.” During the pandemic, Zoom meetings of teachers and students provided a chance to practise language while parents sat beside them at home. “They could easily understand how learning took place and sometimes offered a lot of help which was conducive to learning.” However, the extensive use of Zoom created its own problems. “The students are young and eye development is crucial, but long-term, continuous use of Zoom will affect their health so the daily limit is set at two hours. The school, thus, created a unique timetable with learning tasks such as reading aloud, reading
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