Cedarwood School has gone above and beyond to make their learners feel welcome and safe after the Covid-19 induced break now that all grades are back since 13 July.
Since the education department declared the date for learners to return back to school during the Level 3 lockdown period, there has been some criticism and concerns from teachers and parents. The Grade 12 learners resumed classes in early June, and other grades trickled in as the weeks went by.
Marketing manager of the school, Sarah de Lange said staff wanted to make the return to school for the learners as comforting and positive as possible. “Since the school is quite big, not everyone’s names are known because people scanning may be by the prep side or the college side. So we’ve made an effort to know everyone’s names as a means to re-engage with the community,” she added.
De Lange said the school had adopted methods for all learners to continue with the school syllabus to accommodate everyone learning from home and at school. Since some types of therapy provided by the school cannot be done online, they have brought a number of learners back to school while some continue to learn at home.”Blended teaching is something we have implemented, with some learners coming to school, and others learning from home online.
The teachers have had to change their method of teaching drastically, either teaching online, or making sure classroom desks are far apart,” she said.
Zulu teacher, Thuli Gambushe was in her classroom giving an online lesson. Both she and De Lange spoke on the issues that had arisen with online teaching, and the possibility that a learner may not be able to connect online due to either Internet connection issues or load-shedding.”We made sure to go at a pace that was not daunting for the learners, or too much. If someone wasn’t able to connect to a class for a moment, I would contact them privately either via Zoom or email. We do also have parents’ contact details if need be,” Gambushe said.
“Lessons were also recorded, so they could be easily sent to the learner if they missed something.”
With the prep and college having different break times, methods of social distancing are still the same. The college learners have chairs set out in circles that are spaced apart, where they sit according to their grade.
The younger grades have squares painted just outside their classrooms but some children found ways to stay entertained such as kicking around a pine cone or soccer balls to one another.”We were initially worried that the younger ones were not going to be able to stay in their squares and social distance properly. But we can definitely see they are trying and finding ways to socialise with one another without getting too close,” said De Lange.
“I think it will be a long time until the virus does go away. We made a video discussing Covid-19 and how to keep safe. We would have to change it as time goes on to make it more relevant.”
De Lange concluded, “It will be a big relief for the learners once time passes and masks are no longer needed. But keeping the hand sanitisers in the classrooms and making sure the correct way of washing hands [is done] is important.”
