Schools after lockdown. How ready are they?

Students have started returning to schools after almost 8 months. They are excited, hopeful, and jittery. Opening schools is a step towards normalcy but has also left parents restless as they constantly worry about the safety of their children. That said, they also are in a fix when it comes to the reliability of online classes. Though online classes have bridged the huge gap that was created with school closures, it came with no learning guarantee and created chaos. After all, online classes were just supposed to be a temporary relief. 

Parents believe that it’s important for students to either attend regular classes or be a part of the hybrid model to attain some semblance of a ‘school life’.

Schools after lockdown. Are they well equipped? 

Schools after lockdown have to work together with parents, communities, education departments, and local governments to create safe and healthy environments of learning for students, teachers, and staff. A post-lockdown world is going to look completely different from what we are used to seeing.

A lot of schools are mulling over adopting either of the two modes without realising its implications.

The only way through this crisis is to adopt an ‘integrated online-offline’ strategy. This mode helps students to prevent any learning loss caused due to frequent interruptions and keep delivering high-quality learning in all circumstances. In the absence of an integrated online-offline strategy, students will miss out on learning when the school is interrupted.

Online learning, sadly, is not enough. Online classes integrated with offline learning not just ensure continuity in education but also help to achieve quality learning.

In a recent report, McKinsey discusses ways to create a safe and effective learning environment for students who return to the ‘battleground’. The report said, “In every model, the first step is to get the health protocols right. Once officials have a clear sense of what’s required to reduce transmission rates and save lives, they can develop robust models to minimize further learning delays and support students throughout the crisis.”

The report also talks about how remote and hybrid learning are more than just digital versions of the classroom. “When the pandemic struck earlier this year, many educators had little choice but to move existing classes online. Now we have the opportunity to design better solutions to maximize student learning in remote and hybrid settings.” The report explains.

Hybrid learning seems to be the only sustainable way out for school functioning in a post lockdown scenario. If a school has to run successfully with result-oriented learning, it has to hop on the hybrid bandwagon.

How IS LEAD School helping its Partner Schools operate after lockdown

So far, the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has been a stark reminder of the basic nature of schools across the globe. With LEAD School’s Integrated System, schools can deliver uninterrupted quality learning both online and in school, while using world-class teaching pedagogies. Nucleus, the LEAD School Academic System, makes it easy to monitor student’s performance at the school level. Also, since the post-pandemic world is not going to be the same, at least for school functioning, Nucleus, under its school configuration setting gives an option of switching between the various school modes, such as online/offline/both. School administration can also decide on what days they want to teach the students, add new subjects, and allocate teachers. LEAD School Owner App enables a school owner of a LEAD partner school to monitor his/her school from their mobile phones. School owners can:

• Track key metrics for their school(s)
• Deep-dive into student, parent, and teacher reports
• Receive news, announcements, updates, and other important information from the LEAD School

It’s not only school owners who get empowered, every stakeholder- principals, teachers, students, and teachers get equipped with the necessary resources to make the most of hybrid learning.

Every teacher gets equipped with a teacher tablet, that is loaded with lesson plans, audio-visual resources, and training resources; Every parent gets a Parent App that gives them information on homework, attendance, marks, class pictures, and unit progress; Principals can keep a track of every class and has access to performance reports and The Student & Parent App allows students to attend live classes daily, attempt quizzes, ask doubts in real-time.