Are you ready? Remote Learning here we come!

In the two days we had before schools closing down St Mary's decided to go ahead with their scheduled staff meeting. And as some teachers had selected to work from home, a Google Meet was set up so they could join in. What a great opportunity to practise the coming reality of delivering #remotelearning when school resumes on 15th April.

With the announcement on Monday of the lockdown it made the theme of this staff meeting very relevant. Helen, the Principal, talked about the expectation in their school for how they are using sites to amplify and turbocharge learning. Most classes in this school already had sites set up. Some had just started using them this year and some teachers have used them since joining the cluster 2 years ago.

In the past week we had been discussing with school show they will deliver online learning using the Manaiakalani "Limit the Links" doc as the guideline. St Mary's set to last week and ensured every class had a class site and that all content was visible. Their class sites and blogs are all linked on the school site here.

During the week the year 4-6 classes practised using Google Meet to familiarise the student with this Google App. It also gave the teachers an opportunity to set up protocols with their learners for connecting online in a video conference.

So are they ready? Yes indeed. Combine this with effective practice, Digital Fluency Intensive participation, online support from facilitators of The Manaiakalani Programme and a strong collegiality, they sure are ready.

St Mary's staff meeting before lockdown 25th March

Helen, Principal of St Mary's Catholic Primary School - Gisborne