VIRTUAL LEARNING
Staff, parents and most importantly our students are currently enjoying the benefits of our virtual learning platform, with all students continuing to be taught by our teachers, albeit, remotely.
Virtual Learning got underway on Monday 16th March as the foreseen closure of all schools in Portugal was announced by the Government.
This hasn’t prevented BSL from offering a high-quality learning service for all our students as we recognised the potential negative impact it could have on our student’s education early.
To fully prepare for this ‘worst-case scenario’, we quickly got to work preparing our ‘virtual learning’ online platform, to ensure it was ready and just waiting for our students to log in. We are pleased to say that the platform is already delivering to our students, a broad and balanced curriculum through a mixture of live streams, teacher prepared resource packs, online-learning tools and a restructure of our school calendar.
Teachers are continuing to run a full timetable through ‘Google Classroom’. The learning day begins with a ‘Google Hangout’. This is an opportunity for the teacher to discuss the learning for the day with their students, face to face. Students are enjoying interacting with each other through their webcams and being able to ask questions to their teacher.
Following this, students have been accessing and downloading links provided by their teacher, to complete tasks associated with what they are learning. The teacher remains available throughout the day to address any questions the children may have.
There is a midday ‘Hangout’ to touch base on any further questions and then an end of day plenary session with the teacher. Students have been uploading their work to the 'Google Classroom' and teachers have been commenting on what they have achieved. As well as their normal lessons, there are classes in PE, music, Portuguese and EAL as well. Students have been accessing instructional videos from the teachers to help them understand what they have to do. As this is a new way of learning, the teaching team is continually refining and maximising the benefits of this service.
We are aware that many households have both parents working and we will continue to provide these resources and not add to the inevitable difficulties of having the children off-school causes. All resources are provided, with little to no need to print or prepare any of the materials. Login processes, et cetera have been simplified wherever possible to ensure students can complete their classwork without needing additional parental support.
We are happy to report that everything has been running smoothly and the children and teachers are enjoying the online learning experience.