As the age old saying goes, when the going gets tough... the tough get going!
It might sound clichéd to call teachers to be ever patient and resilient. However, our teachers at St. Columba’s have proved to be just that in these times when we have all been inundated with what is happening around the world about COVID-19. In wake of the apprehension that we are all reeling under, faith and acceptance are the keys to adapt to the given situation.
Clearly, as uncertainty weighs on all of us, we at St. Columba’s are pulling all strings to venture into devising and trying our best to cater to the educational, cognitive and affective needs of our students and parents.
The government enforced decisions for risk-control against spread of the disease, have led our students into temporary ‘home-schooling’ situations. However, on the flip side this has become a catalyst for educational institutions to search for innovative solutions in a relatively short period of time.
The team at St. Columba’s is leaving no stone unturned to continue with teaching their students. With suspended classes we have undertaken "Online Teaching" in a big way. Each teacher has been actively engaged in learning and discovering new possibilities of teaching through various digital platforms including blogs and Zoom classes. This includes designing the blogs, choosing and presenting relevant content creatively and assigning and detailing work to be done at home. These blogs are interactive platforms where all parents are sent links through WhatsApp and are encouraged to add their feedback and queries about the respective subject matter.
Online teaching and learning, even for subjects such as physical education is being conducted. Students are being sent steps and videos of physical and athletic training regularly. In order to ease the process of using these blogs and other online teaching tools the parents have been sent mails of step by step instructions to connect their mobile phones to Smart TVs.
Keeping in mind the total lockdown of Delhi, the Reports of Classes 4-9 and class 11 have been uploaded on Redox so that the parents can keep themselves abreast of the Annual Result of their wards. Messages are being sent regularly to parents to keep them informed about the latest developments in school's initiatives.
Recently due to further restrictions posed by the Delhi Government, the sale of Books in the school premises have been stopped. A link from NCERT has been sent to all the parents which connects to e-copies of the books so that students have access to the relevant chapters.
Regular messages are also being sent about further online resources, audio books and stories, to give parents suggestions to engage their children productively at home.
All this and much more comes with an underlying hope that we all unitedly tide over this threat to humankind... and more importantly emerge out of it wiser with pertinent lessons learnt.
Mrs Pooja Guglani
St. Columba’s (Junior School)
