high regard, COVID schooling lifts in the teacher’s mind an increased need to check on their students’ emotional and social health. Implemented on Mondays in the Senior School is a ‘high-five’ wellbeing check-in conducted with girls by House Tutors. The check-in is a subtle and careful screening process to flag students for further follow-up by specialists, such as our School Psychologists, or simply a second conversation with Heads of Year. Our Barbreck teachers, working with their girls for greater lengths of time, also undertake the wellbeing checks throughout the day. It was soon discovered that teaching online reduced the surveillance capacity to ensure students were ‘doing’ the work, usually observed whilst walking around the classroom and peering over shoulders. COVID teaching required a switch to more of a triage approach – listening to where students were, what they were struggling with and providing feedback as ‘where to go next,’ making the lessons more like a short story with a beginning, a middle and end. Pivotal to each lesson is a need to be clear about what success looks like as they start a series of lessons, considering the efficiencies as well as effectiveness of lessons.
Adopting the Goldilocks principle of challenge (not too hard, not too easy, and not too boring), combined with the integration of social and emotional health in every lesson, are some of the key learnings from COVID teaching. Australians have experienced many disasters such as fires, floods, and cyclones. Once again with COVID, there is much evidence of resilience, getting on with solving problems and looking after and helping each other. Educators have continued to show these attributes during COVID times, hence Hattie’s research title, An Ode to their Expertise. Hattie calls to all communities to “honour their expertise, their care and investment in every student and to applaud the excellence of educators. Along with nurses and doctors, teachers are among the true heroes of COVID.” Michelle Carroll Principal Reference: J Hattie, 2021. An Ode to Expertise: What have we learnt from COVID teaching and how can we apply our new learning? Paper presented at the Victorian Education State Principals Conference, August 2021.
