Has COVID-19 changed education forever?
COVID-19 led to a global shutdown of schools with over 1.2 billion children having to adapt to learning outside of the classroom.
Romania Insider
· Updated · 5 min read
COVID-19 led to a global shutdown of schools with over 1.2 billion children having to adapt to learning outside of the classroom.
As a result, education had to change dramatically, and urgently, with e-learning and remote teaching coming to the forefront via a variety of digital platforms. Globally, the education sector has reported that the switch to online teaching came at the cost of hundreds of millions of pounds, and with the usual timeline for adapting a course from in-class to online (usually between 1 and 2 years) accelerating to a matter of days and weeks.
After very efficient research and planning, Cambridge School of Bucharest (CSB) implemented, within days, digital solutions for the IGCSE, AS, and A level programmes, quickly following with the rest of the school’s curriculum moving online.
“Having an already well-established platform in the school, Microsoft Office 365, meant that we were ready to move our classes online straightaway. As soon as the pandemic hit Europe, we began training our teachers and reworking our curriculum. This meant that we could move seamlessly from face-to-face lessons the day the home-isolation order was made to online teaching two days later, we are very grateful for the remarkable time and energy investment of our staff in adapting to this new reality,” says Matthew Wemyss, Head of Computer Science at CSB.
All of CSB’s activities were moved online promptly, including form tutoring sessions, online live lessons, submitting and marking of work, extracurricular projects, and even Golden Time activities for the Primary School.
“The real trick was managing to cover all curriculum elements and objectives for all year groups online within the timeline of the normal school year. The last thing we wanted was for CSB families, students, and teachers to miss out on a much needed summer vacation once the country re-opened. Our dedicated staff, supportive families, and organised administrative planning ensured that our students could enjoy their summer holiday without the fear of carrying curriculum gaps into academic year 2020 – 2021,” said Heath Renfroe, Deputy Director of CSB.
This did not come without a series of challenges. “Security, GDPR, the increased threat of webinar hacking, and concerns over fatigue caused by excessive screen time all made the safeguarding of students our top-priority when moving our lessons online. Making sure that our students could engage with interactive online platforms, whilst they and their parents feel safe and secure knowing the school has invested the time and effort in finding the best solutions,” added Naim Barbar, CSB IT Manager.
