I recently put forward the following question on Twitter:
Two days after putting the Tweet out I had received almost 300 comments; it was clearly a topic a lot of people had a view on.
To save readers trawling through all 300 comments, I thought I’d put them all in one place. What follows is a list of all the changes staff said they’d want to keep in the new academic year. There were responses from primary and secondary colleagues and a variety of types of schools.
Some suggestions may have been things that some schools were doing pre-Covid, but all of them provide food for thought.
This list is in no particular order, just me scrolling back through my Twitter timeline.
What would you add to the list? Leave a comment below
- Staggered start times – but less gaps
- Individual folders for children’s stationery and reading books etc
- Live streaming of all school events
- Virtual parents meetings
- PE kit on PE day (this was definitely the most popular)
- Continuing with Phonics in Year 3 ( some schools may have been doing this pre-Covid)
- Recorded assemblies
- Recording the tricky bits of a lesson and then uploading to the learning platform
- Remote/virtual parents evenings (popular with staff and parents)
- Daily well-being check ins for pupils who staff have concerns for
- Use of an online library – the person who mentioned this said there had been a lot of books borrowed
- Use of learning platform for messages and homework
- Outside speakers Zooming in
- Shorter lunch breaks
- Live streaming assemblies
- Children going straight into class in the morning rather than lining up outside
- Stripped back marking schemes
- Click and deliver service from the school library
- Sanitising equipment after and in between use (this came from a D&T teacher)
- Parents lining up to collect children fro the gate
- Removing lockers (secondary) so that corridors can be made wider
- Trays kept under tables (primary)
- Less clubs (to allow children to be children)
- Continued use of technology
- PPA on a Friday afternoon for everyone. Lots of getting together and sharing ideas
- School closing at 12 on a Friday
- Separate ares in the playground for different year groups
- Walking one way on the corridor (has made school calmer)
- Telephone parents evening
- Children taking water bottles home for parents to wash
- Freedom to have PPA at home
- Meeting and greeting all children by the school gate as they arrive instead of lining up in the playground
- Staff not arriving before 8an and leave when children had gone – so that school could be deep cleaned
- Individual equipment
- Online CPD
- Book bags on the back of chairs (see featured image courtesy of @joannapple)
- Different entrances for different year groups
- Use of sanitisers
- Lessons in year group-based wings rather than faculties (this has demonstrated the importance of displays, key words, working walls and pride in the classroom)
- Virtual staff meetings
- Having a regular supply teacher
- Off site activities and PE challenge days
- One way system for collecting children at the end of the day
- Use of a digital jotter in face to face teaching – augments the way the teacher can do live monitoring and feedback
- Drafting essay plans with colleagues on Teams
- Drafting work with children on Teams
- Pupils not using photocopiers
- Light touch marking
- Keeping secondary SEND/nurture groups in their own classroom
- Zone registrations
- Infants not queuing to get their lunch
- Base classrooms for students
- Fewer meetings which could have been emails
- Being able to work from home if not teaching at the end of the day
- Teachers leaving the building on time
- Using Office 365 tools to enhance teaching and learning and engagement in lessons
- Separate areas for younger and older children to play in
- Putting reading books into a tray for a teaching assistant to replace instead of letting the children do it (year 4/5). The teacher’s bookshelves have never been tidier.
- Having one lunch break supervisor per class to help build relationships and make them feel more empowered in their role
- One bubble in the hall at a time at lunchtime
- Stripped back curriculum with a focus on essential skills
- Use of OneNote
- Staff meetings on Teams
- No morning briefings
- Use of different entrances
- Finishing at 3pm to allow clubs to start earlier
- Beer in the staffroom! (not sure how true this one was, but thought I’d include it anyway)
- No SATs stress
- In class breakfast club and drop off from 8:30am (I have asked the person who tweeted this to clarify how this is organised)
- Parades around the outside of the school whenever the children were in fancy dress
- Looking out for kid’s mental health and prioritising it
- Look out for staff wellbeing