Abstract
I’m a senior leader in a primary school based in Hong Kong, where I have lived for 4 years now. I’m responsible for curriculum and assessment across the school, and leading teams in the upper school. I’ve also been supporting validated self-evaluation across our group of 22 schools. I’ve been in this role since mid-way through the pandemic year. We’re a group of 22 schools, all in Hong Kong so that’s great due to the collaboration that enables and maintaining a network.
JB: Hi Paul, great to talk to you, can you begin by telling us a little about the the teaching context in Hong Kong?
Hong Kong’s quite an interesting context. Education is highly valued here and as Hong Kong is a global city that’s reflected in the education system itself. In the system you have government funded schools which operate a similar model to England. They don’t call it an academies programme, but you’ve got directly subsidized schools that are focusing on different particular offerings or programmes that make their school unique or special. A large proportion are private or independent as well as international. I think often in parts of society here, money is connected to education, and that equals value for many families; particularly where they can access English medium education. People look to international schools because they see that as a very different offering. Compared to the public system, traditionally it can be a much more liberal approach; more enquiry orientated, but also its about what parents I think, perceive as giving their children access to more opportunities in the future. What is good is that there are lots of professional networks in Hong Kong, and they span the university sector, public and private schools, international schools too. So, there is scope to be collaborating with colleagues, irrespective of what sector they might be working in. I think the key difference compared to other places that I’ve taught in Scotland, Australia and Spain, is the value that is placed on education here, and how that seems to permeate all aspects of society, in both good ways and not so good ways at times I guess.
JB. So how has COVID affected your business as usual?
Well, I mean it’s transformed everything we do, I think, particularly in a primary setting I’m sure colleagues in primary schools would concur, that providing some form of continuity of learning, that’s been the biggest challenge because we’re having to move completely on line. I think the other factor is, before the pandemic, there had been civil unrest in Hong Kong, which also closed schools temporarily too. And before that, there had had been partial closures: For example, if there was a serious outbreak of flu, the government would close schools, but we never offered online learning before and it wasn’t ever for as long a period as now. So I suppose what has shifted is, we’ve had to stop and really think about what we actually value, and how we make sure that’s actually reflected in what we’re offering in terms of on line learning and any resumption of learning on campus whether that’s partial or full. There have been challenges: Difficulties with internet connection for teachers and students, and keeping up with the needs of students and community which have been changing constantly, communicating with families, with students so we could actually get feedback, and make sure what we were doing reflected that feedback and their needs.
I think at the same time the policy context is changing drastically too, in terms of what is expected of schools, how long we would be closed and then the partial resumption of learning on campus, and how to handle that. So we closed in January 2020, we resumed learning on campus in various models across Hong Kong in May, and then, after the summer break we started the school year, closed again because of a fourth wave, then we resumed learning on campus partially again in October/November and then had to close again and we’ve remained closed since December. So it’s also about contingency planning, we’ve had to come up with multiple contingency plans with various scenarios: For example: Say 50% of students on campus, or just those of keyworkers, or now we’ve been given permission to have half days with one sixth of students on campus. There are so many different models, we’ve basically just had to learn to be agile and responsive and that’s taken a lot of new thinking in terms of how do we actually gauge the needs of the community, keep in contact and support professionals to be able to do their job effectively as well.
JB: So, before COVID did you have any strategic plans, long, short or medium-term strategic plans to integrate online learning into your curriculum?
Yes but there was never any plan or any model in place to be 100% on line, of course and I think probably no school would have that, but there were two things that really helped us as we moved into this situation: The first, our learning technologies approach, policy and practices as well as our digital citizenship programmes. So, they were both two cross cutting themes to the curriculum, or two core elements to the learning and teaching strategy within the school and across our group of schools. What was important was, right from the early years we were explicitly developing skills in using, for example, Google Apps. So our students were developing skills in how to access these, then gradually, as they moved up the school, how to use them more creatively to present their learning in different ways, but also, simultaneously we were spending lots of time on staying well and safe on line. So, we were fortunate when we started online learning, we could be confident that most of our students were quite comfortable and confident accessing the online platforms.
As the situation continued we ran regular webinars and workshops, even this year as a member of the senior leadership team we would block out times where we go and support individuals or just check in with students, or work alongside the class teacher in class, where we can support with some of the specifics of online learning. What I do notice is that I’m spending a lot more time now working with some individual students; supporting them to use different online tools and help them manage their time.
JB: And how old are the children in your school, what’s the age range?
So, it’s year 1 to year 6, that’s 4 years old to about 11 years old.
JB: OK, so how do you go about teaching a 4-year-old to use online comms?
So this was something that we had loads of conversations about before the pandemic, because we’re quite fortunate that we’ve got a number of staff that are very capable with learning technologies and are very engaged with them, but this was just a complementary element to their practice before the pandemic, rather than being at the centre of it. For example, we have specialist teacher librarian, information literacy, and digital citizenship leads and as part of the learning technologies programme we had knowledge and skills progression in place, and collaboration already happening between these specialists and class teachers. So, in year 1, 2 and 3 they had already had focused time to learn about the hardware, the software and the specifics of how we use it. So very progressive development, with a focus on the early years on specific skills to access and then as we move into the upper years, it was about integrating that day to day with what we would be doing normally in class. But also, as the pandemic started, we had to consider how we could be using it more creatively, and, what we noticed was that the specific skills still had to be developed and taught with the younger years especially with our year 1’s who had only been in school for half a year. So, it started off just ensuring they were on Zoom and continuing with the planned curriculum, but also building in how to use the technology. We also hold parent webinars, offering one to one’s and ensure we are supporting and using our teaching assistants effectively.
JB: What do you see as some of the key challenges during this period?
I think for any leader, the first thing has been about trying to judge what is doable and worthwhile, and that’s hard because everyone’s got a view on that and everyone’s got a stake in it as well. So, I think overall,that the biggest challenge is that the volume of what you’re having to consider and plan for comes under the systems thinking or strategic thinking umbrella of your leadership practice. Because our immediate priority is, ‘are our students and their families safe and well?’ Secondly are they able to engage in learning, are their levels of anxiety and well-being ok and can we carry on delivering that continuity of learning, while also balancing that with the need to ensure the wellbeing of the students, that’s such a difficult thing to negotiate.
Continuing programmes of learning could also verge very easily into overloading students and families. I think then, adding to that, the fact that we’ve still got students going through transitions from primary to secondary school, early years into primary it’s difficult to try and bring all that together. So, what we’ve been trying to do is just articulate exactly what is our purpose here, what do we want the kids to experience through engaging with these tasks or this learning online, what’s doable, what isn’t. It helps that we are close colleagues with our feeder early years provision, and secondary school, and with our families and transition teachers. So as much as that’s giving a list of things that I guess have been a challenge or particularly challenging in this time, it is also been do able thanks to our clarity of focus, and strength of relationships.
In short, it is complex, and we’ll never get it fully right, but I think we can feel confident that if our focus absolutely is unequivocally the wellbeing of the students and families, we’re doing the best we can.
JB: How’s it working in terms of SEN pupils and their families because this has been a difficulty here throughout the pandemic ?
Absolutely, I would say all students have been our top priority, but it’s also been recognized that students with individual needs must have further tailored individual support, so we’ve been fortunate enough that we’ve got learning support teachers and dedicated teaching assistants as well a senior leader that’s directly just responsible for individual needs. Straight away its been about immediate contact when the lockdown started, contact with families, just to find out about how they were coping, what access to technology they had, what they were hoping to get out of the online learning experience etc. What their learning support team were excellent with, was actually using this time not to only revisit some of the learning content or objectives but using that time to be connected; to share stories, play games on line or to support them with building their time table or their routine and how they could store that electronically or visually.
What the learning support team I think, were expert in, was working in collaboration with the families themselves, as well as the class teacher. Also making sure that the emphasis was on supporting learners as they would normally. In terms of children with individual needs, what made a difference was the check ins, the regular weekly or sometimes daily check ins with their parents and families, so we realized was that was something all parents could benefit from. It couldn’t necessarily be a daily or weekly check in with the child’s class teacher because that would have of course been too much but was about looking at how we could increase our communication and broaden our communication mechanisms. We also introduced using Padlet to post general questions, we had self-referral forms that parents could complete; we changed the organizational structure so they had a designated senior leader that they could get in contact with, if anything emerged, and we continued our usual schedule of parent conferences, or student led conferences/parent evenings that we normally had. The first few times though, instead of calling them parents’ evenings we called it a ‘family check in’, so the class teacher, the educational assistant and/ or the learning support teacher across the school would use this time just to check in with families. The focus wasn’t necessarily always academic attainment or progress, the focus was how are you doing, how do you see your child coping with online learning and what could we be doing better to support them.
JB: So, you’re talking about a lot of support there, but who supported you and your senior team, were you drawing on any support from any external agencies, any government agencies or any websites?
I mean in terms of access to support, I mean I guess we were quite fortunate that we’ve got a team of six in the senior leadership team, so actually it was great to have the support of each other. What were very fortunate with as I mentioned briefly at the start, is we’re a group of 22 schools so we’ve got a big network to connect, so I can go and tap into to ask questions, like how are you tracking or monitoring progress for learning on line, how are you running your parent conferences etc.
I’m coming towards the end of my doctoral degree at the University of Glasgow, and just having that network and time to check in with people that are in very different contexts out with Hong Kong has been great. Some of them are not actually in teaching or some of them not in primary education either, and just to be able to draw upon their experiences their perspectives or just to have a listening ear that understands the situation you’re in, but maybe not necessarily too much of the specifics when you’re not necessarily looking for advice all the time, is really valuable. Someone that can in a way coach you through and problematize some of the things you’re facing. I think that was what was important for me.
JB: One final question: How do you see this creativity continuing?
I think broadly we’ve got a really unique opportunity here, because one of the things I’ve been saying from the start was that what this has taught us is what we really value and what we actually think schooling is all about – what education’s all about. And I think this has helped us think about, and make decisions about, our priorities. For example, we had to reduce the sheer volume of maths and language, when teaching online, and start to look at things that are a bit broader and how we can make better connections across the curriculum when online, like we do when we are on campus.
The other thing we’ve noticed is that when we do have students back on campus the priority has been outdoor learning, collaborative or cooperative skills and games, fostering connections that sort of thing. So even more broadly, I hope we have evolved an approach to education that recognizes and starts to properly reflect what we know about child development, in terms of what is actually important at each stage; how we develop a sense of self, and interaction with the environment, making sense of it and taking a much more interdisciplinary approach to curriculum.
I think the curriculum offers us developmental milestones, and assessment supports understanding where a child’s at and formulating next steps but I think, what this creativity has taught us is that standardized assessments alone don’t offer us that information and a standardized curriculum doesn’t either. For example; a team in Year 6 led a student inquiry focused on the context of around the world in 80 days, where they were developing plans for travelling, post COVID; they were having to source flights, accommodation, monitor their budget etc. They were collaborating independently and effectively online with the moderation of a teacher, sometimes without, developing skills such as: Self-regulation, motivation and self-management skills, and we were then able to assess not just on the outcome but the process they were engaging in as well.
The thing that I suppose I remain undecided about is whether or not when the pandemic does come to an end and we do come back to what looks like the normality of the pre pandemic period, is whether or not we’ll remember what these lessons are. I’m confident that in my context,we’ve engaged in so much self-evaluation and tried to solidify so much of what we’ve done throughout this time, that we will remember. We’re already planning what this will look like in the future but what I’m concerned about is whether or not broader systems will actually retain these lessons because I’m not necessarily seeing all of this reflected in the approaches to online learning from I suppose a political stand point and a policy stand point. What is being advocated right now is the continuity of what had come before, rather than responding to the complex needs that we’re faced with just now, and through that process, we are being forced into facing the reality of how much of what we do normally in schools actually reflects, or doesn’t, what our communities and what our children really need. I hope if it doesn’t change things in schools, it will at least force us into a different conversation in a policy context about what we’re expecting of schools and school communities.