Teachers have been working hard in Northampton to establish and maintain online lessons to enable education to continue as efficiently as possible through remote learning programmes.
I wanted to experience some ‘virtual teaching’ at a secondary school in Northampton via MS Teams.
I was kindly invited to do so by Northampton School for Boys and I started off by dropping into a fascinating Year 9 Religious Education lesson where the class were discussing Islamic art. I then got to listen to some of Northampton’s budding future politicians by stopping in on a Year 12 Government and Politics class, who were discussing a detailed breakdown of voting patterns at the 2019 General Election! After this, I was further impressed by a Year 11 Spanish lesson, whose pupils were able to utilise online teaching to great effect, working on both their Spanish reading and listening skills. Finally, I attended a Year 8 and Year 10 English lesson – the latter of which allowed me to sit in on a read through and analysis of the famous play, ‘An Inspector Calls’.
Each one of these lessons showed not only the passion of NSB’s teachers to go above and beyond to ensure their pupils’ continued education during this pandemic but also the strong work ethic of the children to continue working so hard under such difficult circumstances.
I finished the morning with an engaging and challenging Question and Answer session with lots of pupils of all ages, who asked some really impressive questions on topics ranging from my work as an MP to the Government’s support for businesses during Covid-19 and even surrounding the American Presidential election!
It was useful to hear from pupils and teachers alike about their experiences of Virtual Teaching. I absolutely commend the work of teachers during this incredibly tough past ten months. I am in full agreement that it is absolutely vital that we do everything we can to ensure that children can access good quality education. I also do support the return to schools as a priority just as soon as it is deemed safe to do so, for the sake of children’s education. It is an acknowledgment of how important education is for our children that the Government has done everything possible to prioritise keeping schools open. With the roll-out of the vaccine, it is my hope that schools will be able to re-open soon.