Schools locked, education continues
Classes with only one or two students. Teachers who quickly set up a home program. And parents who join forces. It's a messy first day of quarantine.
picture: Type tank
Group 1/2 teacher Britt van Setten has a cold at home and normally does not work on Mondays. Yet this morning she called in from home with Microsoft Teams to meet with her colleagues from a primary school in Rhenen who were present to discuss how they are going to tackle it. “This is still difficult for pre-schoolers,” says Van Setten. "You cannot give them a package of calculations or language."
Digital notice board
The outcome of the meeting was that the teachers fill a digital bulletin board with a weekly task. “It contains, for example, a calculation or a language assignment with links to the assignments. That can be a game on the computer. For my class I put a craft on it that they can do and I might want to do a digital circle if that works. ” Van Setten also plans to record a day opening for her preschoolers to get the day off to a good start and to be available for questions every day at 9.00:12.00 AM, 14.00:XNUMX PM and XNUMX:XNUMX PM.
The corona crisis does create a sense of community, says teacher Britt van Setten
The teacher estimates that today and tomorrow are needed to get everything set up. They haven't worked with a digital bulletin board before, so it's a try. "We have to email parents what the intention is and, for example, see which students do not have a laptop, so that they can borrow one." The corona crisis does create a sense of togetherness, the teacher notes. "We are immediately in action mode and see what is needed."
Parents teach
Parents of jenaplan school de Brug in Utrecht set up a program with neighbors. “Three weeks is a long time, so we thought it would be smart to stick to the rhythm of the school day,” says Edo van der Velde, father of sons aged five and seven. “Both the neighbors and the neighbors next to us have children of the same age, we have set up a schedule in which we divide the day parts.” The idea is to simulate a school day: start with the circle, eat fruit at ten o'clock, eat a sandwich at home at noon and the afternoon program with the other neighbor.
We have set up a schedule with the neighbors in which we divide days
Van der Velde started this morning with a math lesson: “I let the toddlers play with the duplo in the front room, in the construction corner. I have done sums with the elderly. But it was still a bit of testing what the level was."
"To be honest, it ended in chaos," says Van der Velde with a laugh. After eating the fruit, he left for the park armed with a pétanque set and a football with six boys. Hopefully we will get some lessons from school in the coming days.”
Secondary schools
Secondary schools are also looking for solutions today. At the KSE school community in Etten-Leur in Brabant, they want 170 teachers and 2500 students to meet each other via the internet from tomorrow, BN de Stem reported. With the Teams program, they hope to continue the lessons online as much as possible according to the schedule. 'Our teachers indicate, from the comfort of their own homes, that a lesson is about to start,' rector Jan van Heukelum said in the newspaper. 'Students can then log in at home with their own code; their teacher sees the names of students who have signed in. Then the lesson can begin.'
Chairman Berend Buddingh of SKVOB, which includes fourteen secondary schools in Breda, Bergen op Zoom and Oosterhout, lets in the same newspaper know that there is no script for this challenge. 'We are going to investigate how we can realize distance education in the short term. But it is of course not that simple. You can't do that on a Sunday afternoon, nor on a Monday and Tuesday. ' He is also concerned about the final exams and how to complete the school exams. "Is it possible to do all of this?"
