What impact will new procedures from health and hygiene have on your approach to providing learning?

[Kevin Lloyd]

In some places school children who are at risk of developing a serious illness if they are infected with the SARS-CoV-2 virus will be exempt from school operation after providing a medical certificate. The same applies to students who live in a household with members of a risk group.

• How will your school provide support for these students while quarantined?

As planning is important to be prepared, according to a survey by Together School of parents and international school leaders, there is a high expectation that COVID-19 will be a disruption through next school year and potentially beyond. This will require preparation for examining how to manage potentially the class size or having some grades do online learning one day and then be at the school the other day.

• Will you include parents as tools for learning at home?

Communication for such things is critical.

• How will you approach this?
• Will you have video explaining the reason and decision, a webinar, send push notification to notify everyone and track their response, etc.?

[Greg Varner]

Room to Zoom Learning

 A few schools that are in the process of reopening have provided some insights. The phased returning of students to schools is being done at different speeds and is often controlled by the government; however, all are facing a similar challenge of how to manage blended learning.

 The concept of Room to Zoom is rapidly becoming part of the new normal for many schools. Lessons learned from these schools include the following key challenges and ways of working:

• Agility: flexibility is important to respond – if it is not working it is important to adapt and try something different
• Room to Zoom schedule: driven by social distancing, schools are taking different approaches with student rotations including Day 1 / Day 2 or Week 1 / Week 2 or Morning / Afternoon (benefit is no lunch required and time for deep cleaning) or other variations. The considerations include room availability, teacher availability, student class size and governmental requirements. One recommendation is to limit the number of rooms or buildings that students need to move between.
• Teachers: teaching in Room (onsite) or Zoom (online) requires a very different approach from teachers. A recommendation is to have teachers focus on either Room or Zoom. In some countries. teachers with existing conditions or older than a certain age will not be required or allowed to return onsite. This could be an opportunity to use the teachers at home to provide Zoom classes.