St. Ann’s Bay Primary Keeping Students Connected During Covid-19

Principal of the St. Ann’s Bay Primary School in St. Ann, Trevor Cole, says a range of measures have being implemented to boost learning and keep students on course during the pandemic.

Speaking in an interview with JIS News, he said that checks are carried out daily to ensure that students are attending classes.

“Where we find that students are not logging on to the platforms, we mobilise the guidance counsellors, we place phone calls, we go into the communities,” he noted.

“Some days you may have up to 70 per cent, other days you may have less… that is dependent on connectivity. That is why it’s important that from an administrative level, we are able to see class by class what the enrolment is and what the attendance for the day is like. This is so that we can put mechanisms and systems in place to reach out to the students and to ensure that they are in class,” Mr. Cole said.

He told JIS News that the school has also been working with local and international partners to get tablets into the hands of students who do not have exclusive access to a device.

For students, who have devices but face challenges with Internet connectivity, efforts are made to purchase phone cards for them to have data access.

Mr. Cole noted further that a digital space has been created on the school compound for students and teachers to work and connect to classes.

“We have made provisions for students to visit the school and to use the school’s Wi-Fi so that they are not missing out on teaching and learning, and for teachers, who may have connectivity issues at their home… to ensure that synchronous teaching is facilitated on a daily basis,” he said.

Mr. Cole told JIS News that pivoting to online learning has “tested our resolve”, but commended the teachers for their dedicated efforts to ensure that the students are accounted for online.

The institution has been successfully engaging up to 70 per cent of its student population online since the closure of schools.

“One of the things that we have tried to do is still keep a positive mindset and to ensure that our objectives of ensuring that our students achieve and that our teachers provide quality instruction for the students are not impacted,” Mr. Cole said.

St. Ann’s Bay Primary is slated to return to face-to-face classes in January following a recent announcement by the Education, Youth and Information Ministry that another 383 institutions have been approved for the next phase of in-person learning.