With the upward swing of confirmed and suspected cases of COVID-19 cases returning in our community, Hong Kong students once again are having to prepare themselves to switch back to online learning. ‘Going to school’ has started to take on a completely different meaning and format in these difficult times.
Naturally, many parents have concerns that learning at home is not ideal given the living environment in Hong Kong. Parents worry that their children may not be able to socialise with their peers in the way they would normally do at school.
Remote learning at Wycombe Abbey School Hong Kong is a well-planned and expertly implemented method of learning. Since closing our face-to-face teaching for younger years in the last week of November, positive feedback from parents has flooded in. Despite the very short notice of this most recent closure, our students have been enjoying the classes remotely almost immediately.
“It has been handled very well! Students are doing work and being challenged in their learning at home,” said a parent.
The school uses Microsoft ‘Teams’ to develop its online learning platform. This platform allows teachers, students, and parents to interact and engage in a creative and engaging way. By utilizing these latest technologies, both the teaching and learning levels have been elevated to ensure a seamless transition from face-to-face teaching to an online learning mode. Disruption to students’ learning has been kept to a minimum. Technology undoubtedly helps provide critical hardware for online learning. However, the software is equally important. Parents at Wycombe Abbey School Hong Kong praise the school for its excellent adaptability. As a new school that only opened in 2019, amidst the societal turbulence of that time, followed closely by the pandemic outbreak, the school is focussed on continually adapting, constantly reflecting, fine-tuning and seeking opportunities for improvement, despite the challenging times we are living through.
Parents are delighted to know their children are caught up with a full day of interactive classes, including music, drama, iSteam and art. All of these subjects are presented in such a way as to encourage pupils to focus during their classes at home. There are even ‘wake-up & stretch’ sessions every morning with the whole class! The school is especially skilled at differentiating tailor-made solutions for each pupils’ specific academic abilities and designs individual learning programmes as pupils require them.
In terms of the social side of life, students are able to chat and talk to their friends and teachers online and can share their experiences gained during the day. Specifically, there is a one-on-one interaction session for teachers to facilitate and monitor each child’s learning progress. Homework is posted on Microsoft One Note. From here teachers will mark and give feedback on each piece of work completed.
Our pupils are at the heart of all we do. The school considers the needs of its pupils in supporting their online learning. Arrangements are made for iPads, headphones, and other necessary learning materials to either be collected from the school or from our school bus. Our famous white bus visits six well-advertised locations around Hong Kong Island each week. As well as delivering learning tools, the bus also delivers library books, to support our pupils’ continuous reading in Chinese and English. Our families can meet the bus at the most convenient location each week to pick up all their schooling supplies.
To specifically support our parents, a choice of ‘Learning Platform Tutorial’ meetings, hosted on Zoom with School’s Head of ICT are arranged and advertised to assist our parents who are new to the School’s online learning provision.
We are Wycombe Abbey Remote Learning.
Watch the full video on remote learning: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xMEl6lTPOSc