COVID-19 has had a huge impact on the world and people everywhere are being called upon to help their communities by working from home. Teachers are playing a huge role in helping by helping the continuation of education all over the country, from emailing work to children, to going into school to look after the children of key workers, to posting work for students who don’t have access to a computer at home. I interviewed Miss Emily Johnston, a language teacher at St Catherine’s School, Twickenham to find out what it is like for all the teachers who are working so incredibly hard at home to support children at home all over the country during this difficult time. Thank you all teachers for supporting the education of children through this difficult period.

"What was your reaction when you first found out that you would be doing online teaching?"

“At first, I was really apprehensive because being a teacher is all about interacting and being with students so I wasn’t sure how it was going to work. I was also quite sad because I like coming in every day and seeing the students and my colleagues. However, with the situation as it was, I also felt relief because it wasn’t safe to be coming in every day, so it was what I was expecting to happen.

"How well prepared do you think you were for this change?"

“I think we were fairly well-prepared by the time it happened because we had been expecting it so we had done training on Google Classroom and we had a lot of meetings together as teachers to work out how this would work. I know some teachers used Google Classroom a lot anyway. I, personally, didn’t, so I had all of that to learn, which was a lot in the space of a week but by the time I left, I felt like I knew what was going to be happening because we had been preparing for it long before the government announced that schools would close.”

"How has work changed since working from home?"

“It has changed a lot because being a teacher, essentially, is about communicating and about being with students and colleagues and that’s been taken away, so it has been a lot of learning how to work digitally, which has been a challenge because I am used to having my whiteboard pen and the whiteboard and teaching that way. However, it’s been good because I have been able to find new platforms for vocabulary learning and verb learning, things that I will use when I go back to the classroom, which is great.”

"What additional responsibilities are there when teaching from home?"

“For me, the responsibilities have stayed the same, which is the students’ welfare and the teaching and progression of students so my focus is still on the girls at school. I know that lots of other teachers have other responsibilities like people who are dependent on them, like children, people that they’re caring for, but for me personally, I don’t have that so it’s been very much focusing on making sure the students are attending the lessons, if they’re not, finding out why, talking to parents and making sure they’re understanding the work. I have started doing video lessons now so that I can make sure that the students are understanding my questions.”

"Are there certain elements of teaching from home that have proven to be more difficult than the others?"

“I think, for me, marking has been a little bit more difficult because normally, I’d be able to collect in a set of books, whereas that’s not the case now, and only some students are able to complete all the work on Google Docs and submit it. Not every student has access to a computer every lesson so then they do it in their exercise books and I get a photo of their work, so I’ve got a lot of work in lots of different places. I think that’s probably the thing I found most challenging, of course, the technology as well, I’ve had a few lessons that were supposed to schedule but didn’t schedule and a few mishaps like that but I’m getting to grips with all the technology now.”

"What do you think the most challenging thing has been and how have you overcome this challenge?"

“I think making sure that students are engaged has been the most difficult thing because I can’t see their reactions, I can’t see how they’re doing in the classroom, so I’m kind of guessing whether they’re enjoying the activities or whether it’s working for them, but I’ve started to overcome this by having video chats with people. So I set a task at the beginning of the lesson and then give students a time to join the video call so I have small groups of students for feedback so that I can see if the tasks are too difficult or too easy or if they needed an extension, which has really helped because speaking to the students is the best way to find out how they are.”

"Do you have any advice for any teachers who are in a similar position to you?"

“I would say that the most important thing is to look after yourself and your well-being and not put too much pressure on yourselves, it’s an unprecedented time and this is new for everybody. I would also say that lots of websites have given their resources for free to teachers now so they can access loads of different websites and loads of different resources to help students learn digitally. It's helped me a lot so I think that would be a piece of advice I would give them.”

"Do you have any advice for students who are learning from home?"

“I think I would tell them to try their best, there’s going to be days when they don’t feel great about the situation and they may feel a bit down and that’s ok, they need to know that those emotions are fine and that they can reach out to their teachers to ask for help if they need it, and that they’re not on their own, the people who are there for them at school are still there for them now, and that’s what they should know is readily available to them. Also, I’d say to just try your best to keep up with the lessons, anything that you can learn now will help you when you go back, as little or as much as that is, really just try your best and keep in contact with your teachers and your friends to make sure that you’re on track.”

"Are there things that you find easier to do when teaching from home, as opposed to in a classroom?"

“I found that I really like using websites like Memrise and Conjuguemos and things like that that are based on technology that I can’t do in the classroom because we don’t always have access to the laptops and students aren’t allowed their phones, so actually being able to let them spend 10 minutes on websites like that, I think really helps them to learn vocabulary or verb formations, and that’s something that I can do now that I can’t necessarily do in the classroom.”

“I just think that this is a difficult time and there are ups and downs for everybody but I think the resilience of the girls at the school has been fantastic, everybody is getting on with it and everyone’s trying their best and I think that everyone should be really proud of themselves.”- Miss Emily Johnston

Rashmini Mootoosamy