Teaching staff at Robert Ferguson School have spoken about their experiences of adapting to teaching during lockdown.

The teachers, who in addition to supporting remote learning have been looking after the children of key workers and vulnerable children in school, have tried to align the experiences for children wherever they are.

For example, children of key workers in Year 1 made soup in the Forest Schools area, with pupils based at home then encouraged soup-making as a remote learning task, with some reportedly 'delicious' results in both settings.

Year 1 teacher Mike Roughley has been impressed with the enthusiasm with which pupils and parents have greeted home learning.

“We have had some fabulous home cooking and baking videos and photos after the soup recipe I made in Forest School.

"Some have copied the soup and others have made more tasty treats, such as cake, bread and hedgehog rolls - we even had a chocolate replica of Big Ben,” he reveals. 

There have been some unforeseen benefits arising from remote learning with parents reporting enjoyment in watching their children learn, and finding the videos informative and confidence-building.

One parent commented that prior to the videos she was unsure of the terminology associated with phonics and the pronunciation of sounds, but now the videos had given her the knowledge to support her child with reading.

Mr Roughley added: “Lots of parents are engaged with the writing and maths.

"We have had some fabulous recounts of stories and some great examples of maths including recognising coins, giving change, telling the time, addition and subtraction and recognising and recording numbers to 100- and back again!"

“Some of our parents have found their own science experiments to complete on top of the ones we have sent home such as exploring the reaction generated when you mix lemon juice with bicarbonate of soda.”

“We made bird feeders to try and attract more wildlife and hung them in their own gardens, as well as up at Forest School. Some of the children took part in the RSPB Big Bird Watch.”

Paula Rinder, who teaches Year 6, also said: “We also took part in the RSPB bird watch and some of them have enjoyed spotting the different birds in their gardens.

"The areas that stand out most are the cooking and art tasks. The cooking tasks are always linked to maths questions, eg, ratio and proportion and fractions. Topic work has also gone down well and we have had some lovely research about mountains and volcanoes.”