“I have never spent so much time in my kitchen…
Not cooking, or not only cooking, but round the table with laptops, books, pens, pencils, scissors and glue trying to balance working with my own children (keystage 2 maths, English, history, geography and quite a lot of art) and to maintain some kind of purposeful relationship with classes who I no longer see, and indeed one class I have taken on whom I have never seen.The communication at the moment all feels very one way. In the frenzied efforts of the couple of weeks leading up to the closure of schools, we worked frantically to get mock exams marked for A-level and GCSE students who we were at that time still preparing for exams. We spent weekends on WhatsApp and email putting together booklets of work that would keep pupils busy with meaningful work in the event of a closure we saw as more and more likely and I hardly stopped to think. Now, of course, I have quite a lot of time to think.
The booklets of work have served their immediate purpose. Those children without access to computers or tablets or reliable broadband could go home with something to do and we could use the time after closure to establish routines for ourselves and think out the next steps, but I’m finding the distancing from classes a real struggle. Our department WhatsApp has been peppered with similar anxieties as we wonder how often and by what means to get in touch with pupils and parents; how to raise concerns that pupils and students seem not to have even looked at the work set, nevermind attempted it; whether to set them more to do or less.
In between trying to explain percentages, find objects with which to make a sculpture, filter emails and text messages, clear up the endless accumulation of cups, glasses, crumbs, apple cores, pencil shavings, we’ve been busy writing quizzes, as it seems to be one quick and accessible way for us to check something is being done and for pupils to show us that they are doing. We’ve been playing around with different technologies, but tentatively and with a sense that they might create more problems than they solve, and we’ve been sourcing poems that resonate, provoke or amuse to share with staff through the daily bulletin.
So this is where we are: there are ‘home-learning booklets’ for keystage 3 that include a range of SPAG, reading and writing activities and from which we can set specific tasks each week. There is an Easter poetry competition on the theme of ‘rebirth’ for anyone who wants to participate. There is the opportunity to learn some more poems from Poetry By Heart in our weekly poem challenge. There is a reading project that we always set at this time of year for keystage 3 and for which pupils had already chosen their novels and are keeping reading diaries, doing character studies and formulating a creative response. There are quizzes galore. There is a whole bank of reading and writing activities that are lined up and ready to go after Easter. Year 10 have started and so are continuing to read Lord of the Flies and there are weekly quizzes and activities to support this. Year 12 have study questions on their set texts, consolidation and revision activities that are replacing the internal exams they would have been preparing for, links to performances of plays on YouTube and lectures, discussions, radio programmes.
But there is no satisfactory discussion, yet. Indeed, there is relatively little back and forth, and I’ve realised that while feedback is undoubtedly important for pupils, it is just as important for teachers.”
Jane Campion is an English teacher at the Katharine Lady Berkeley School in Gloucestershire. Jane is the Chair of the EA’s Secondary Education Committee, and is a Trustee of the EA. She has been a Fellow of the Association since 2019.
