Remote Schooling

The word ‘remote’ conjures up a wide range of associations. Remote possibilities suggest things so outlandish and beyond our likely experience they are not really worth considering – though the new normal today was a remote possibility only a few months ago. Used as a noun, ‘the remote’, or remote control, used to stand for the excitement of innovation, adding a new and thrilling convenience to consumer technology bursting into people’s homes. And a remote location often adds a sense of glamour and adventure to travel in a shrinking world. 

It wasn’t, until very recently, a word many of us thought about applying to school outside some truly remote parts of Australia. Education has, quite rightly, always centred around personal interaction between teacher and pupil, from the discussion of Socrates and his followers in the agora of ancient Athens until, well, a few weeks ago. But if the current pandemic seems to represent the worst of the modern world, it is equally thanks to modern innovation that remote schooling can happen, for a time at least, without losing that personal contact between teacher and pupil that will allow our girls to experience true education, and not the distance learning of a correspondence course. 

Sherborne Girls’ digital strategy already underpins teaching and learning, adding innovative technology to enhance the experience of teachers and pupils. The move to pen-enabled devices and collaborative software such as OneNote and Teams for all classes has not in itself changed the education offered, but has made it more adaptable to individual needs and allowed teachers and pupils to interact with each other more effectively. The girls (and the teachers!) have leapt forward with this technology over the last couple of years, and those who could not be with us in person at the end of last term were immediately exploiting its ‘remote’ potential to carry on as normal. Importantly, this was not a replacement for what was going on in the physical classroom; it is a continuation, resiliently adapting existing ways of working to address a novel problem, and in a way as close to familiar as possible.  

By adapting the technology already in use across the school, whether in Sherborne, Shepton Mallett or Shanghai, the girls can receive proper guidance from their teachers, with the advantage of almost all the resources that would be available in a physical classroom. They can speak to their teachers and their peers and receive instant responses and feedback. They can work on tasks themselves or collaboratively, and instantly share them; teachers can see each girl’s individual work and give her personal feedback, written or spoken, in her own online folder for each subject. The same digital skills that girls were developing before to make their learning more powerful and personalised to her, are now enabling them to continue with that learning in extraordinary circumstances. 

Not very long ago, it would have seemed only a dimly remote possibility that teachers and pupils, all in their own homes (some of them in remote locations), could use new remote technology to work in a virtual classroom that provided the personal interaction of a meaningful educational experience. Sherborne Girls’ digital strategy has put our pupils in a wonderful position to build on their existing digital literacy and skills to continue their learning smoothly in the current situation. #SherborneGirlsAtHome

Alasdair Matthews, Director of Studies