While many sectors are considering how they get back to ‘normal’ or what their ‘new normal’ will look like following the COVID-19 pandemic, our Education Officer, Mark Kilgallon, is excited about the prospect of welcoming young people back to The Stoop to continue their education, following a prolonged period of remote learning.
“From the offset our students have had to adapt to an entirely different mode of learning, that doesn’t come without its challenges, but they coped really well.
“However, we know that meaningful interaction with their peers is as key to a young person’s development as any lesson, so we’ve been working tirelessly to get our classrooms ready for the safe return of our students.”
Both our HITZ and Engage programmes will be back to face-to-face delivery from September, offering a mixed approach, retaining some remote learning via Microsoft Teams and Zoom. By doing so we hope to:
- Support young people back into education in a staged and responsible way.
- Help all our students to meaningfully engage in their education, be it remote or otherwise.
- Provide young people with the essential support they need to continue their development.
Unfortunately, a recent paper by the Education Endowment Foundation, estimates that many of the hard-won reductions in attainment gaps between disadvantaged young people and their peers are likely to have been reversed by school closures.
“We’re conscious that remote learning has worked perfectly for some of our students and imperfectly for others.
“Addressing any gaps in learning that have developed since the suspension of our face-to-face delivery in March will be our absolute priority.
“Supporting young people to develop the essential skills required to succeed in the 21st century is the overarching principle that drives our education programmes and we are committed to ensuring young people on our programmes have every opportunity to be successful.”
If you want to know more or to sign up to our HITZ Programme, please contact Mark Kilgallon on mark.kilgallon@nullquins.co.uk.