Covid-19: why our school community is more important than ever – Spring Grove School
27 Apr 2020
It’s been a week since the schools shut and the UK was put into lockdown, with most people going out for only the bare essentials. As children’s education has moved into homes across the country, the sense of community based round our schools has never been more important. While we are forced to be apart, thanks to technology we can still be together.
Spring Grove School is located in 14 acres of beautiful Kent countryside on the outskirts of Wye, and in normal times this is where our pupils have the physical and mental space to play and explore, experiment and learn. Even though many children in the school were already well used to accessing Google Classroom via their school Chromebooks, the abrupt switch to online learning last week definitely marked the beginning of a new chapter in their education.
From the start it was clear that establishing some kind of routine was key. An important part of our school timetable is a daily assembly, where the children come together to sing, to celebrate, and to listen. With the aid of live-streaming technology our Head, Mr Jones, continued this tradition every morning last week in an assembly broadcast from the School Hall. While Mr Jones sang hymns and songs in splendid isolation in the empty hall, at home children, teachers and parents sang along with him.
The assemblies were also a great opportunity to share news, images and home videos across the school community to see what everyone had been getting up to in the first week of home schooling. It was heartening and inspiring to see the range of activities going on across our school community – from helping with the lambing to some impressive dance displays, cooking, crafting, and even making home-made soap! Some children were keen to recreate at home what they were missing at school – most notably Spring Grove’s award-winning Forest School, with den-building, marshmallow-toasting and cooking over a campfire all featuring in the week’s activities.
The holidays have now started and for our children it’s time for a break from the usual school routine. But as we think towards next term and the very real possibility that the lockdown will continue the links and support provided by our school community have never seemed more important. We may have to learn remotely, but by sharing our creative and academic efforts, and by the magical power of singing, we will come through this together.