Parents of students who attend Pewsey Vale School have been sending the school staff messages of praise, appreciation and support for the way the school has moved seamlessly to provide on-line learning with live lessons.
The school has also continued to organise food packages with the catering team at the school providing high-quality food items. After a lot of preparation, training and organisation the Covid rapid flow test is now available in the school.
One parent commented, “A huge thank you to you and your staff for such a seamless transition onto Online Learning. At this incredibly stressful and unusual time, you have all met the challenges brilliantly.”
Headteacher, Neil Pritchard, said, “I am proud of how the staff and students at Pewsey Vale School have adjusted to our current online teaching. Our teachers are continuing to teach their normal timetabled lessons. These are delivered both ‘live’ to the vulnerable and key-worker students in the classrooms as well as those accessing the lesson online.
Students are able to see their teachers via Teams and access the lesson resources, as well as ask questions through the online platform. We have been able to offer a lot of support and feedback immediately to the students and the engagement and reaction has been exceptionally positive.
As a school, we feel that it is imperative to support our students and families in this unfamiliar and evolving new way of working. In the past week, we have endeavoured to contact every family to complete welfare checks and ensure they have the equipment required to complete the home learning.
We would like to thank Marlborough College and the local community for their ongoing support and generosity. They have donated additional laptops and i-pads for some of our students in order for them to home-learn. We really appreciate how the community comes together to support the school and we are very grateful for this.
We recognise that home-learning is an increase of screen time for our students. This is important to manage effectively. Therefore, from this week, we have amended our online lesson times to allow students to have a break before their next lesson. I am genuinely delighted with the feedback that we have received from parents regarding how home schooling is being received.
I would like to thank all of the parents and carers for their support in helping the students access this work. It has been a huge team effort from staff, students, parents and carers. This has ensured that student engagement in their online learning has been exceptionally positive.”
A final comment from a Pewsey Vale parent: “I have to say that with the limited time, resources and in the wake of 9 months of extremely tough teaching conditions, I’m really impressed with the arrangements for the online learning.
I can only speak for my son, but after an initial issue opening anything in a Browser, he has attended all lessons today and has actually enjoyed the experience. As a 13 year old, I think just being in contact with others, even in a virtual environment, has been of huge benefit and I see a much more motivated child than during the first lockdown.
I would like to thank you and all the staff for your continued dedication to maintaining as productive learning environment as possible, and I consider my son fortunate to be at Pewsey Vale School!”
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