Family Settings

During the pandemic and the lockdown of schools, students we’re confronted with the fact that also their other family members had online lessons......as well as parents had online meetings...how did primary teachers respond to this.

You suddenly had to take into account the class schedules of older brothers and sisters and the work schedules of the moms and dads who had online meetings. A class day for me as a teacher was a home day from 8 to four instead of a school day until 8 to four, so I was always available by mail or via information moments, question rounds, online question rounds. I tried to set the lessons at fixed times, but also to take into account as much as possible who could not be present at that moment, or to fit in a catch-up moment. It was certainly not a classic structured day of lessons.

Certainly in the beginning we could not reach easily all students.

By actually starting in small groups and communicating via e-mail to students and parents, that did grow. The first online lessons, if half of my class was present, I was a very satisfied teacher. The more often that was implanted and how often we communicated quickly and that there was also a follow-up, the more students also participated and were effectively present during the online lesson.

As a teacher you differentiate in a completely different way ,where you will use a digital tool to set students to work independently.

The digital skills and competences of the students also improved and after Covid, we also tried to implement them in classroom practice.