Tuggerah Public School
Going ‘straight to video’ to combat COVID-19 disruption.
When one Central Coast school looked for ways to ensure it could continue to provide quality education for its students, it found a solution where everyone could be a star.
Earlier this year, the principal, teachers, and teacher aides at Tuggerah Public School introduced instructional videos to help students and parents cope with learning from home.
Since then, videos have become embedded in nearly every aspect of life at the NSW Central Coast school, from classroom teaching and homework, to school assemblies, staff and community communication.
Videos dealing with all key learning areas – from maths and spelling to art, music and cooking – have been produced and uploaded to the school’s website.
Children can pause or replay the videos at any time to practice what they have learnt, or reflect on new information.
Originally made to help children and parents at home, the videos are now being used in the classroom for differentiated learning and everyday teaching practice.
For example, when a teacher is working with one group of students in class, another group can work independently with the help of an instructional video.
Videos have also been integrated into homework, and parents can watch the material to understand what their child is learning.
The videos have super-charged students’ imagination, teaching them how to shoot and edit video, and how to create storyboards.
With the return to face-to-face teaching at school, students can still access videos from home to learn languages, receive art or music instruction, or to improve their literacy and numeracy.
With so much of the school work moving to online platforms, staff at Tuggerah Public were careful to also cater for children who couldn’t engage online. Family and carers were able to “drive-by” the school to safely pick up and drop off work for their children and staff hand-delivered work to students’ doorsteps.