Covid-19: How did we do?
We joined the rest of the country in dismay as Covid 19 spread across the world forcing the Government to make the unprecedented decision to close all schools on March 20th 2020. Our calendar filled full of prospective joy was suspended and we prepared for online teaching and home learning which went live from the first day of closure. We supported our parents with tailor made timetables coupled with hard copy challenges and a basic remote system to support the enormous challenge of home learning until Easter which gave us the opportunity to buy into a first class remote digital system; Seesaw.
Across the Easter holidays, whilst we continued to remain open for children of Key Workers, our teachers mastered this new system allowing video contact, lessons taught with visual examples and beautiful slides with a personal voiceover. As soon as work was submitted an excellent marking system allowed teachers to feedback orally and with written comments and stickers to celebrate the work whilst providing detailed ways forward paving the way for success. The results were amazing as demonstrated by the wonderful parent comments a few of which we have shared on this page.
On 1st June we were able to welcome back the majority of Nursery, Reception and Year 1 children and we continued to bombard the Education Secretary for permission to bring back Year 2s. This persistence paid off and Year 2 returned triumphantly on 10th June and the suspended calendar was reviewed, adapted and quickly reinstated.
Our traditional school musical performance took place with our children who were formally stars of the stage now thrilled to become ‘stars of the screen’ with scenes filmed safely in Pods and edited together with brilliant success. See the exciting trailer here.
Our annual Sports Day took place with children running against each other in Pods rather than Houses but the thrill of competitive sport and the privilege of appearing on the podium delighted every child from Nursery to Year 2. Whilst we couldn’t invite parents in to watch we once again filmed the entire event to allow parents to share in the energy and joy.
An entire school concert was carefully filmed and edited complete with children shielding at home appearing via home video link. Introduced by the Music Captains, this allowed all children to have their moment with beautiful solos coupled with whole Pod choirs.
Our traditional annual Leavers Assembly took place via Zoom and this enabled parents of the Year 2 leavers to see their Year 2 child’s final performance of the year, receive their book gift and hear their eloquent memories to enjoy and celebrate their child’s wonderful formative years.
At the time of writing Government restrictions and guidelines are still in place to support the safety of us all. We continue to be amazed at how quickly our young children adapt to new procedures allowing them to get on with the important part of life which is education and fun here at St Christopher’s.
“The true measure of any school or business, is the way in which it responds to a crisis. We don’t believe any school in the country could have done better than St Christopher’s – remote learning was implemented quickly and efficiently, with all teaching staff working day and night to ensure that there were no gaps in education (or fun) at any point.” Year 2 Parent
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