The Ridge School embraces the challenge of online learning

The Ridge School rolled out its online learning programme on 17 March following two days of mass staff strategy sessions. This will continue until 9 April, when the term ends.

According to the director of marketing at The Ridge School Joe Kotwal, the school has adjusted well to the altered reality they now face.

“Distance learning is so foreign to primary school education and the associated learning programmes that our staff have really had to brainstorm and collaborate to ensure that learning outcomes are still achieved without being present to monitor this,” said Kotwal.

According to Kotwal’s observations, the boys have embraced the challenge with a can-do attitude and he is astonished by how resilient and adapt to change they are. He said this is a testament to their parents and teachers.

Kotwal added that adapting to this new way of learning has been challenging. Challenges varied from which platform was best suited for learners, parents and teachers to staff realising how reliant they were on visual clues during lessons to determine whether boys were understanding the content.

Kotwal said that in order to counter the lack of face-to-face time, the junior prep school has relied on individual WhatsApp video calls for bridging the distance gap and lack of personal contact.

“I have been enormously impressed with all that our teaching teams have done to realign their teaching methods in ways that would allow for online, remote learning. The use of Google Classroom, Google Meet, the setting up of online work packs, the purposeful one-to-one contact and follow-up with boys and the care shown on the pastoral side to help boys who might have been feeling overwhelmed, disconnected or lonely, has all been wonderful to see.”

Kotwal said that all boys have been able to access the distance learning programme and boys without tablets were issued with loan devices on the last day of school. “We are so aware that we are privileged to be able to do this and acknowledge that so many children are not as fortunate.”

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