Online Learning at DBIS
March 2022 | Hong Kong
Supporting our Students Through COVID-19
When Hong Kong closed schools for two weeks back at the start of 2020, no one could have predicted that home learning would still be on the cards now. Over the past two years, the city’s students have seen their learning time split across periods of face-to-face classes and online lessons.
2022 started with all of our children on campus. However, as COVID-19 cases began to rise across Hong Kong, the Education Bureau made the decision to temporarily close school premises to students.
Whilst this was a disappointing development, DBIS’s students and staff were once again able to switch seamlessly to online learning arrangements, with children across all three phases of the school continuing with live lessons.
Online Teaching at DBIS
DBIS’s online learning arrangements ensure that students have all the resources they need to make strong academic progress despite the fact they aren’t physically on campus. All of our Secondary School students have their own laptops, whilst all of our Primary School and Early Years students can borrow school-owned Chromebooks should they need them.
Most lessons are taught in real time using Google Classroom, with breakout activities and offline tasks being set to offer variety and screen breaks. A range of complementary educational tools, such as Seesaw, Pear Deck and My iMaths are employed to enhance learning.
Teachers stay online throughout each lesson, ensuring students have the support they need whenever they need it.
In Early Years, the programme balances live teaching with a variety of offline activities. This approach takes into account the challenges our youngest children can find with online learning and is designed to keep them engaged and enthusiastic despite the situation they currently face.
Winning in Challenging Times
We are incredibly proud of the resilience and determination our students have shown over the last two years. Their motivation to learn and the way they have adapted to each new phase of teaching is testament to their incredible characters, and their development in terms of positive communication and the use of technology in a remote environment has been immense.
Our teachers, too, have risen to the occasion, and the creative methods they have applied to lessons have been instrumental in keeping the children focused, happy and on track academically.
As a school we have placed emphasis, even more than usual, on supporting every one of our students in terms of wellbeing and holistic growth, and we are constantly developing our innovative wellbeing programme to support students and their families both educationally and emotionally.
A Team Effort
DBIS is a community school, and the positive approach teachers, educational assistants, support staff, parents and carers have maintained in the face of adversity shows just what can be achieved when we work closely together.
Parent and student feedback has been instrumental in helping us develop such a strong online offering, and we’re incredibly grateful to our wonderful students and their families for their ongoing input. An example of one recent initiative is the introduction of some online extracurricular activities. The fact that we aren’t all physically in the same place doesn’t mean things have to stop – we just have to adapt.
Hong Kong faces a new round of uncertainty in the coming weeks, but our DBIS community is strong, and together we will do everything we can to provide the stability and security our children need to progress and flourish.
