The most important aspects for the virtual learning at BCB is ensuring that the principles of excellent teaching and learning remain central to all we do.
This means keeping our lessons engaging, personalising our curriculum to reflect the students interests, concerns and abilities and most importantly of all having teachers who care passionately about their students.
Our virtual learning environment has brought many challenges for teachers, students and their parents, we have all had to learn the technological skills required to deliver and receive the lessons,to develop new ways of interacting with each other and most importantly find ways to preserve the student-teacher relationship
As we move into Key stage 1 (Year 1 and Year 2), the children are becoming a little more independent and online learning is becoming a little easier to access. Nonetheless the social interaction and the ‘presence’ of the teacher is vital, as it is for every year group in our school.
As our lessons continue online our teachers are adapting the lessons to suit the home environment, Lessons are based around themes that children can access resources relating to these themes from their homes - we ensure all our learning is personalised to the current situation.In addition we are building up the live lessons and will be adding more every week so that when we go back to our campus, the children will be used to some degree of live learning.
Daily calls where students are given the opportunity to share some news important to them. In order to give each student a chance to talk and maintain the children's attention, the class is often split into two for the calls. We have created virtual playdates guided by teachers and TAs with small groups of children, this is so important to maintain both social interaction and the sense of being connected with the school.
Daily storytime videos, these are constantly being updated and added to, our school librarian is creating a wonderful library of adult read stories.
Feedback on what the children have done is so very important in all aspects of teaching and learning, in our virtual learning environment this is done by combining written, audio and video feedback on student's assignments.
Teaching Phonics is the precursor for all reading and writing.To read successfully, children must learn to turn the words they see in a text into sounds, and make sense of these sounds. It is important for children to learn letter-sound relationships because English uses letters in the alphabet to represent sounds. Phonics teaches this information to help children learn how to read. Children learn the sounds that each letter makes, and how a change in the order of letters changes a word’s meaning. This is why it is vital that our phonics lessons are both live and recorded so the sounds are clear and can be practised frequently.
Key stage 2 (Year 3, 4, 5 and 6)
By the time children reach Key Stage Two, independent and child focused learning becomes the key teaching philosophy. Through a mixture of engaging videos and live lessons, teachers are committed to providing a curricular input that both stimulates and challenges their class. Children are expected to help mould a learning path that is best for them; open dialogue and self-aware choices are encouraged so as to develop a growth mindset in each pupil.
In providing open ended tasks, children are exposed to material that they can access at a level that is manageable yet thought-provoking and seeks to allow them to progress to a level that optimises their potential. Using cutting edge educational theory (including a Maths Mastery approach, Talk for Writing and STEAM) each child is provided with the tools with which to learn and develop.
KS2 children are encouraged to engage in tasks that develop ‘21st century skills such as problem solving, critical thinking, collaboration and creativity. Using our Nord Anglia connections, the pupils are able to access lessons from Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) as well as engaging in activities with their peers around the world through Nord Anglia’s Global Campus. As we help the children become global citizens, we encourage them to think about their role in society and how they can contribute to the school community - something our links to UNICEF help foster.
As always, we are committed to making sure that each child is allowed to develop both academically and pastorally and now more than ever the school is focussed on maintaining positive relationships and attitudes. By encouraging children to be open and supportive we seek to help create an empathetic and socially inclusive environment. Our daily class conferences and regular live lessons offer the pupils a chance to interact with their friends, discuss their work and most importantly have fun with their peers.