With remote learning currently in place for all boys from Year 7 to Year 13, QE staff are drawing on the extensive experience gained from last year’s first lockdown, while taking full advantage of technological advancements now available to them.
Deputy Head (Academic), Anne Macdonald, says that the focus in refining online and other forms of remote learning is on keeping pupils’ experience aligned with the School’s customary strengths: “It is important that we continue to develop the boys’ independent learning skills, building confidence and resilience, and honing their organisational skills.”
Overall, a “blended approach” is being followed, combining both “guided independent learning”, through the eQE platform, and “interactive lessons”, given through Microsoft Teams. “The variety helps pupils to remain engaged with remote learning,” says Mrs Macdonald, who sets out below the specific features being used and their attendant advantages.
Among the eQE features proving particularly useful in lockdown are:
- Tasks and the subject pages in Academic Departments, which are used for sharing learning resources, such as PowerPoints, worksheets and weblinks, and for setting activities to support guided independent learning;
- The add comment feature for eQE tasks or eQE Forums, through which boys can ask questions and receive answers from their teachers and peers. Pupils can also share work and ideas on the Forum pages;
- eQE Class Tests: these are secure pages that can be set with timers and are thus useful for assessing boys’ learning during tests. These are being used for Year 11 mock examinations this week, for example.
Microsoft Teams is being used in two principal ways, as Mrs Macdonald explains. Either all boys and their teacher ‘join’ their MS Teams lesson at the start of the class, when they receive instructions about the learning objectives and learning activities to be undertaken. This is followed by a time of guided independent learning through eQE. It finishes with everybody ‘re-joining’ the MS Teams lesson so that the boys can review their learning and have an opportunity for their questions to be answered. Or full lessons are taught entirely through MS Teams.
The use of MS Teams:
- Provides an opportunity for accommodating different learning styles, with verbal as well as written instructions possible;
- Allows boys to receive answers to their questions, and teachers to assess learning;
- Enables interaction through class discussion and the development of speaking and listening skills;
- Gives a chance to demonstrate practical work and to hear performance work;
- Facilitates pair work or group work through using breakout ‘rooms’.
The screenshot image, top, is taken from Mrs Macdonald’s Year 12 Physical Geography class on Friday, which covered the topic of Tectonic Processes and Hazards. Mrs Macdonald used MS Teams’ Whiteboard feature to explain ‘slab pull’ as a process of tectonic plate movement.
Congratulating the pair formally with Headmaster Neil Enright last term, Director of Music Ruth Partington paid tribute to colleagues who had helped them and expressed the hope that their achievement would be a foretaste of even more singing successes to come.
Eeshan explained how his audition had gone. “There were two senior members of the choir, including the conductor, who listened to me perform and then got me to complete a few exercises to test my ability. I performed an Italian song called Dolente immagine di Fille mia and got special commendation for singing in Italian.
Joel, who has been having singing lessons since the beginning of Year 8, also acknowledged Mr Bowden’s help. In his audition, he performed Where the Bee Sucks by the 18th-century British composer, Thomas Arne. “I feel like my singing has developed massively as a result of these lessons.”
Question: Two congruent pentagons are each formed by removing a right-angled isosceles triangle from a square of side-length 1.
For the first episode of Archewell Audio, Megan explains, she and Prince Harry decided to enlist “a few friends and a lot of other folks” who “we admire, and get their thoughts on what they learned from 2020”. George (OE 2002-2009), whose relationship with Prince Harry stems from his long-standing role as an ambassador for one of the prince’s charitable foundations, joined singer Sir Elton John, American politician Stacey Abrams, presenter James Corden, and tennis player Naomi Osaka in making his contribution.
earlier in the month, George, in fact, revealed his plans to get engaged – “I would love to give a shout-out to my beautiful fiancée, Sandra” – and was duly congratulated by both the Sussexes.
The following month, his acclaimed podcast, Have You Heard George’s podcast?, was nominated for, and subsequently won, a Peabody Award – one of the world’s oldest and most prestigious media prizes. His was the first British podcast ever to receive a nomination for a Peabody Award.
ives Matter movement.
have jumbled-up words, but after rearranging them, the poem starts to make sense.