Teaching and Support During Lockdown

We have been with EDClass for coming up to three years, we invested in this to support students that are based in our Inclusion Centre and to support students who might be working off site. We found that students needed something they had a little bit of control over but also structured, and that mixture of independent study, allocated learning and the potion to use seats meant this fitted all of the criteria. It was also a great alternative to just giving students worksheets and asking them to get on with it. After seeing the demonstration and realising that literally every student could access this, the chance to customise learning pathways and the support available made it a no brainer.

We didn’t look at any other companies, and were recommended EDClass by a colleague. We have seen other tutoring services, but nothing on the scale that you are able to offer.

EDClass has been invaluable during the lockdown, once the announcement was made from the government our staff quickly set to allocating work to students to complete. We have had almost 900 students access the system in Years 7 – 11 during the lockdown period. This has been a phenomenal success for us, and has really helped cope with the demands placed on us during the lockdown.

It has also been great to see so many parents expressing an interest in the system and wanting access to parent codes to be able to check on progress.

Prior to the lockdown we were using EDClass with a small group, and we still need to make better use of the seats, but to be able to live track how many students were login into the system was really helpful. It also helped that the pathways we set were mapped out to our school curriculum.

We are also learning every day, and EDClass is going to play a big role for us come September as we return, due to the amount of ways you can utilise it. Our staff are now fully aware of the power of the system, so making this something of a staple in our teaching and learning is only a matter of time.

Prior to lockdown, this was used an intervention for students based in our Inclusion Centre, Isolation and those educated off site. This would have been students that struggle in the classroom environment  need to be able to take a little more time in their learning and can get instant feedback on their work.

Since the lockdown, we are seeing it for multiple uses. Students in the lower year groups have used this to plug gaps in knowledge, with many telling us they have been using the independent study section. Our examined year groups are making use of the exam board specific lessons to ready them for exams and this has meant our English team in particular have been allocating specific pathways to students.

It has been good for parents as this has meant they have not had to sort through books and worksheets, all they have to do is get the student set up on the learning button and they are good to go.

The safeguarding is very good, this has been useful helping us with students off site in particular, this is really important to us as a school.

When we have used live lessons, being able to call them at a moment’s notice is great. If we have a student that has been removed from a lesson, being able to get them into something structured with online support in a matter of minutes has been really helpful.

During the lockdown we have been sharing headline data with year leaders and progress leaders and then celebrating those with great performance in our learning nestler to parents. We have been running a competition amongst the year groups, with those who appear in the Top 50 receiving recognition, and the year group with the most students in the Top 50 also getting recognition. We even have a little league table running from over the lockdown period.

This has also helped us find out who isn’t engaging, and has meant our pastoral team can come in and support those who aren’t featuring in our data.

We have been able to support hard to reach students in a much better way. We have been able to plug a gap with something meaningful. If a student needs a task to complete, there is no need to go to different rooms or teachers trying to find worksheets of textbooks. Once a student is logged in they are good to go, that has meant that students that needs it isn’t losing 15 minutes here or an hour there as they may have done before.

With our hard to reach students it is becoming common terminology, they know that if the come to Inclusion its time get on with some EDClass pathway work. We need to get to this position with our seats as well.

Our students and staff have found using EDClass very simple. When you tell people what it is they assume it’s going to be this monster that takes years to learn. For what it does it’s very simple to get along with, and one of the benefits of the lockdown has seen our staffing team easily get to grips with the system, with many taking the initiative and setting work for students.

Students once they have their login are very good on the system, something like this plays into their strengths as it’s an online platform, which is several times more appealing than a text book.

We are a large comprehensive school, and the power of EDClass to support students is growing as we use the system more. The system is beneficial for all students in school, every subject is covered and in the long run and used properly is going to be a huge time saver for staff, which is what every school would benefit from.

It’s very flexible, and initially we thought this would support a small group of students through our Inclusion Centre and off site provision. We have quickly learned there is a place for this in the school day and as part of extracurricular provision as well.

The support from the team is brilliant, there has always been someone available if there is an issue.

Sam Southwell, BBB Inclusion, Shenley Brook End School