How to reduce the risk of COVID-19 in schools and what could schools do long-term?

COVID-19 or Coronavirus as we may all know has led to global challenges, affecting entire countries, tourism, trade, economy, and most importantly has unfortunately taken the lives of many. It has caused much confusion and anxiety and many who may have symptoms may not seek help or even have flu-like symptoms, for the fear of being marginalized. 

Another area which has been deeply affected is education, many states have completely shut down, such as Hong Kong which has taken a huge shift and transitioned to home-schooling for nearly 800,000 students. Some of the advice given to countries by the World Health Organisation includes:

-      Are we ready for the first case?

-      Do we have enough medical oxygen, ventilators and other vital equipment?

-      How will we know if there are cases in other areas of the country?

-      Do our health workers have the training and equipment to keep them safe?

-      Do our labs have the correct equipment to help them test samples?

-      Do our people have the right information? Do they know what the disease looks like?

Almost all of these questions can be adapted slightly for schools, are our staff trained to address any cases, what is our crisis management plan? Larger school groups will have a central plan of action which will allow all schools to follow an up-to date and consistent plan to help keep all members of the school community safe, but smaller schools who may not have the expertise of group-based support may struggle to keep up with key information and protocols. This article will help provide some ideas to assist in safety during times of need as well as discuss the important of adapting education in the future.

The first point to note is the importance of appropriate information, which is communicated to the school community with an aim to maintain calm and reduce anxiety. Many parents and staff will source information from the internet which can cause distress and alarm, it is the responsibility of the school to ensure timely information is sent to every stakeholder to maintain calm in such circumstances.

It is also important to ensure cleaning is stepped up to reduce the risk of germs spreading, the virus can be airborne and germs on surfaces is one way to spread the virus. The school can also avoid large groups in confined spaces, avoiding congregating in groups reduces the risk of spreading any virus; assemblies can be done in classrooms instead of large halls and school trips can be deferred till later. Any events which encourage a large volume of visitors will need to be avoided as there is little control over who attends the school and thus can prove to risk the spread of any virus. 

Schools need to have a strong understanding of staff and student visits, check the attendance registers and contact families who have been travelling to understand the destinations, if there is a destination which is on the WHO list of countries then it is important for these students to be screened by a physician before attending school, the same applies for staff, who should change their travel plans for the coming spring break, to ensure their own safety and that of their colleagues and students in school.

Even though a school may take all precautionary measures stated above as well as others, there is still a significant risk if there are several cases in a region or area as cited above earlier, the schools in that state can all be closed, these are abnormal circumstances for any school or authority. The key question is, how ready are your schools for such circumstances? 

Some schools had enough resources, specialist staff and fluidity to transition the learning from in-class to online. Online learning if frequently used by schools to supplement in-school learning but never entirely as a replacement. I propose to you the importance of introducing a crisis management plan which enables learning to take place online for long periods of time. So how is this possible and what must a school consider?

We can begin with having an online platform which students are accessing from home, teachers are able to place resources and lessons for students to learn from, but this is has a number of limitations as it depends on student-based engagement and no social interactions? 

The school could also consider a classroom-based online environment through the use of video conferences, in which the students can see the teacher delivering a lesson and students can interact through the chat feature, this will increase engagement and feedback. Work could then be set in the former online platform for extension activities and further practice. 

Other elements schools could consider is the use of Artificial Intelligence, which can easily be adopted to adapt learning according to the individual abilities of students as well as track formative assessments, saving teachers valuable time, which can be spent in more effectively facilitating students and their learning.

Schools with current VR headsets in school could use this technology to immerse students into a virtual classroom, one which the Gen Z are familiar with and may embrace the learning environment more than a traditional school setting.

All of the EdTech mentioned above are not new, and therefore places as suggestions as they are current technologies available in most schools, with better use, can become powerful in addressing the learning deficit which can arise from global issues such as viruses, natural disasters or geopolitical challenges. 

A key to the success of any intervention is training, teachers will require support, leadership and training to enable them to transition their pedagogical practices in new ways. Every school is encouraged to consider a crisis management plan which takes learning of students into account under any difficult circumstance.  

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This article was written by Zen Kahn CEO education 1st Recruitment & Zen Professional Development