Yesterday, Monday 5th October, was a special day: Teachers Day. After health workers, teachers have been at the forefront of battling against Covid – albeit in a different way. They had been tasked with continuing to ensure that learning took place, even though there were no schools open anywhere, and in many cases the teachers…
There is a trend of engaging less with nature, amplified by quarantine over many months. This is due to “fears for children’s safety plus the demands of modern life mean many parents don’t allow their children the same freedoms”. But the simple act of being with nature has multiple benefits for the physical and mental…
Due to the pandemic children have been forced into a new relationship with technology. From March, in many countries of the world, this was the only link to an education, be it in the form of a laptop, chromebook or tablet (for the lucky ones) or via TV or radio programmes, in much of the…
Covid-19 has increased the importance – even necessity – of having technology in education. However, this does come at some cost. Both local and national governments have been scrambling to buy hardware to provide to children (causing a massive backlog in the supply chain) but are only focusing on the device and not the software…
After a lot of criticism and much uncertainty around the move to reopen schools, the UK experience appears to have been a success and the gamble has paid off: the government really needed this. While the exercise can not be seen in isolation of measures to avoid transmission of the virus, it does show that…
We were very pleased to see the Apple Event 2020 announce a new feature, Family Setup, which enables a parent to pair their own phone to a child’s Apple watch and stay in touch by phone, or text message. To quote Apple it “enables greater independence for your kid. You get safety communication features in…
Much analysis has been done as to the effects of the pandemic on Education. Inevitably the conclusions are not good in many respects. Apart from the obvious loss of 3-4 months equivalent progress across the subject spectrum, there are additional negative aspects, as outlined in this article by Business Insider. Key among them are the…
While all governments have placed a lot of emphasis on children returning to school – sometimes even using bullying tactics (US) – the fact remains that schools are potentially hotspots for virus transmission. According to a recent British Medical Journal article and chart (below) there are ways to reduce the rate of infection by taking…
The OECD just published a report, The Impact of COVID-19 on Education: Insights from Education at a Glance, analysing the impact of the pandemic. One of the major questions facing governments is regarding the “allocation of public funds as economic growth slows, tax incomes decline and healthcare and welfare costs rise”. Vocational qualifications, that were…
A few articles have started to question whether the pandemic might be good in one respect for education: that it gives us the possibility to reassess what an education should look like. It is an issue that has been very much at the back of mind for most professionals and leaders as they deal with…