A headteacher at a Norfolk school has said the transition to pupils learning at home was easy, thanks to the school’s “digital expertise.”
Howard Junior School in King’s Lynn, known for its digital innovation, is using its love for technology to its advantage as pupils learn remotely due to the coronavirus.
The school holds Norfolk’s most advanced digital classroom - The Inspire Suite, which is focused on iPad-based learning and is among the top 500 digital schools in the world.
Both teachers and pupils have adapted to the changes brought about by the lockdown and have used the school’s digital technology to continue their daily work and challenges.
Headteacher Gregory Hill, said: “Howard has been a digital school for years and is an Apple distinguished school.
“The switch to a virtual school has been an easy one for us mainly because our school has a high level of digital expertise.
“We saw years ago digital learning is the future and have ensured we have cutting edge and state of the art systems to support this.
“Our pupils are safely at home but engaged with their teachers via digital platforms such as Showbie, Youtube and ClassDojo to ensure high quality tailored lessons that accelerated our pupils’ learning and ensure they do not fall behind.
“We also appreciate the PE help from Joe Wicks too - the whole school takes part in his PE every morning.”
The school is also using social media platforms for parents and teachers to stay in touch and to share pupils’ work.
Mr Hill said: “Each class has a Twitter account to share work and ideas.
“We’ve been highly successful with our learning due to the nature of being a digital school already.
“We’ve continued high quality learning at home for our community and have had very high participation levels.”
The primary also launched a virtual ‘forest school challenges,’ which sees pupils learning about the environment and taking part in challenges from planting and growing, bird watching and caring for hedgehogs and then sharing it online.
Howard Junior is partially open for key worker families and vulnerable pupils.
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