Educating for excellence in lockdown: The Cathedral Grammar School
Strong relationships are the foundation of a vibrant school culture and are further cemented during testing times.
“Children build deeper bonds with staff and each other when they are known, noticed, appreciated, and challenged to be their best.
These deeper connections accelerate motivation and learning,” says The Cathedral Grammar School principal Scott Thelning. Maintaining connections, having continuity and consistency is the challenge during a Covid-19 lockdown, he says.
“The Cathedral Grammar School has five key principles supporting our approach to maintaining a strong sense of connection and community. These are to connect and care, challenge growth, provide support, shared agency, and expand possibilities. It was imperative during lockdown that we built into our programme a variety of opportunities to connect, talk, laugh, share and celebrate. This was done on different levels – small groups, classes, multiple classes and the whole school.”
He says the foundation for this approach is targeted teaching in a structured, daily, age-specific timetable with face-to-face contact with teachers.
“It was also critical to us that we transferred as much as possible of our on-site experiences and opportunities to the online environment. The students’ day started off with fun morning catch-ups with their teacher and class, often based around games and dress ups. They also had student-led house challenges and pre-school daily mat time. Well-being check-ins were also important during the lockdown, with twice weekly live chapel services.”
Mr Thelning adds that a sense of normality was maintained with a weekly assembly and staff gatherings. Specialist music lessons and performances kept going, as did specialist art, PE and science lessons.
“After three weeks being off-site, our students have returned to school feeling like the status quo was largely maintained during lockdown. There actually was no transitioning back into school life. It was always there, just planned for, adapted and delivered through different means.”
