The Lowdown on Lockdown

Over lockdown, Point England was still learning. Whether it was online learning with the teacher, or children learning some home skills at their whare with their whanau. It was amazing to see what some of our learners were producing. Our learners were getting through what we would usually go over in a week, in one whole day!

As a teacher, I’m always learning things. I’m not going to lie and say distant learning/teaching was a breeze. I’m a BT and I was due to get my registration, so I found myself at some point in overload. If I wasn’t making tasks and coming up with creative things to do for my learners, I was updating my PRT site and making sure everything was there, or looking at different textbooks to help me understand different teaching techniques and styles.


So what did I learn?
- Manage my time better
- Look at the content I was creating. Can it be adjusted and used again? Is it fun and creative?
- Learn how to do things myself quite quickly.

I was able to go to my daily meets on time (4 times a day), create fun and engaging tasks for my learners, create little clips for my learners, and it even helped me to form bonds with them. We also kept up with our weekly staff meetings, team meetings and even had staff catch-ups over Google Meets.

For our planning, our team discussed weekly themes. This would keep learners engaged from Monday through to Friday. They would be excited to see what each day of learning was going to be! This turned out really well for me.

In Week 1, we looked at dinosaurs. It was quite interesting for the boys in my class - they were so intrigued, and were able to create some great pieces of creative writing. The girls even started to take interest in this topic. It was something that they could get creative with, and it wasn't your typical fairies and unicorns.


Week 2 was all about ANZAC. It gave my learners an insight into some New Zealand History, and they seemed to be quite interested by it. By the end of the week, they had so much knowledge about ANZAC and Gallipoli, I created a Kahoot to test what they had learnt. It was quite a close quiz, and it showed me that they were engaged in the work I was giving them.

In Week 3, we hit Level 3 - wooooooh! This meant two teachers from our team ended up having to go into school to teach those learners who needed to be at school. It would have been way too hard for them to manage the children at school and the children that were distant learners, so two lucky teachers picked these classes up on top of their own. I had my Room 6 learners already, and I was asked to pick up Room 10. As nervous as I was, I had such a blast with both of these classes. I was able to meet some learners I hadn’t met before lockdown, and I even formed some great relationships with them. This week's learning was all about Volcanoes. I recorded a science experiment of myself, because lowkey I'm a scientist, and some of my learners were so excited, they went ahead and gave the experiment a go! With adult supervision of course...

Week 4s learning was all about Continents of the World. Our learners gained so much information, they were able to explore a world outside New Zealand, and understand what a continent was. Luckily for their skills on their Chromebooks, they were able to become their own 'Dora the Explorer'. We didn't get to learn about all of them, but the trustee Kahoot allowed me to see all of the knowledge they had gained over the week.


I decided that our last week of learning would be all about NRL - National Rugby League! I thought it would be something fun, and because they had done so much research over the past few weeks, it would test them to look for the appropriate information for each task. The learners got to know a bit more about me, especially because I got to show them who my favourite team was, and the different supporters gears I got to show them. One of my learners actually bummed me out and told everyone that my team was on the bottom of the ladder, but hey - they were researching and doing a good job at it! Once again, we ended the week with a Kahoot quiz, and they had a whole heap of fun.

I had a lot of fun working with both my learners, and my team. I guess in some way that's what we were aiming for - keeping our learners engaged and learning. We worked hard to keep our learners interacting with each other, engaged, and happy. It was definitely something to get used to at first, but I can’t wait to get back to school for face-to-face learning!