Magic and Awe

At Rowledge C of E Primary School, lockdown prompted some wholly imaginative approaches to lessons, in which staff broadcasted dances, teachers became secret agents assisting with “undercover learning” and YouTube videos gained thousands of views. Deputy Headteacher Joe Yates explains: “A huge driver for us was allowing pupil interactivity and engagement with us and each other whilst at home... Videos produced to include children from home, and our creative learning themes, kept up the buy-in from families and continued to bring smiles to our community.”

“Technology can take our learners to places they would never be able to reach,” he adds, “in immersive ways that we could not replicate using traditional methods. It is an exciting time to be a teacher and I look forward to seeing our teaching evolve with the digital landscape.”

Collaboration and Confidence

Meanwhile, educators across the 31 Star Academies schools successfully trialled techniques and shared best practice, with one primary academy – The Olive School, Bolton – commended by the Department for Education as an example of excellence in blended teaching practices.

“A significant number of pupils at the school have English as an additional language,” explains Sabina Saeed, Principal, “a challenge which was ordinarily met by immersing pupils in vocabulary and syntactic language patterns in school. During lockdown, we worked to deliver three language-rich remote ‘live’ lessons a day, which prioritised vocabulary development and enabled pupils to interact with staff and peers. A ‘story of the week’ gave pupils multiple opportunities to hear, repeat and memorise language patterns. As a result, pupils continued to follow the routines that were well established in school and, through regular practice and repetition of language, their vocabulary continued to develop in line with expectations.” 

Spurred on by their online learning success throughout the pandemic, edtech is now firmly embedded in the teaching practices at The Olive School, Bolton – and across Star Academies – and the school is committed to exploring new ways that technology can enhance its pupils’ learning. 

Enabling Accessibility

At the Deaf Academy, staff seized opportunities to explore everything edtech could offer, creating adaptive digital approaches where none had been before. As teacher Matt Jenkins recalls: “To be an academy with no previous experience in online learning, experimenting and really pushing new ways of teaching in Deaf education, it was really something special.”

Staff helped learners thrive by spotlighting interpreters on Zoom calls, developing British Sign Language resources that other teachers could use, supervising break-out sessions for social time, developing No-Screen Wednesdays to minimise online fatigue; even spreading their outreach further with a new public online platform, Ask Deaf Teachers.

“Our Online Academy ensured every single child and young person had full access to their education and therapies,” says Matt. “It was exhilarating, it was as if within entering the pandemic, we were able to redefine our methods of teaching with a whole new toolkit. Student expectations are high in their self-belief and, even a year on from the Online Academy, students have retained their edtech skills and use them daily.”

Looking to the Future

It's an exhilarating time for us all in education as we share these gains in creativity and innovation, shaping solutions for the classroom and beyond. 

The digital learning curve of recent years, the imaginative solutions of teachers and schools across the country, and the growth of the latest technologies, continue to influence everything Pearson offers – including free edtech support; the extension of digital tools into subjects such as Primary History and Geography and our ActiveHub family of digital services, that are continuously evolving to enhance teaching and learning experiences. At the core lies continued conversations, and collaboration, around the future of edtech and how we can collectively support schools and their pupils at the right time, and in the right way. 

Together, we can further enable access for all, facilitate teacher and student creativity, and harness insights to enrich every learning journey.