Following the government’s announcement that all schools must close until further notice, Sydenham High School pupils and staff have thoroughly embraced the move to Guided Home Learning.

Staff have created engaging lessons and pupils have adapted well to working online. Google Meet has revolutionised teaching and allowed classes to work collaboratively whilst physically separated.

Some highlights of the first two weeks:

• Miss Hawley gave her year 7 maths class a recipe that would make 12 Easter Nests and they had to scale it down or up to make 8 or 16. Proportions: Milk Chocolate – (from 200g) 134g Shredded Wheat – (from 85g) 57g Mini Eggs (from 100g) 67g
• Year 10 upcycled denim items for a DT textile project: Naomi created bag from an old dungaree dress and Ella added a new bright flare panel and embroidered pocket to her old jeans. Eco friendly and super creative!
• Time lapse was a favourite for PE – from workouts to yoga sessions
• Google’s Kami extension was found to be a brilliant new tool to annotate PDFs of past papers
• Daisy created a visual rondo using condiments: Hummus (theme A) is the chorus. After each verse you return to A but slightly different (2 types of of hummus!) Mustard is theme B which complements the rest of the piece, then back to A  and on to theme C (Tzatziki) which is dramatic  and builds tension; resembles A but different!
• Online collaboration has really worked for PSHE, with pupils contributing to shared slides, for example, under ‘You and The Media’, year 7 classes have been looking at the power of the press and discussing whether news is child friendly, whilst year 9 debated rules they felt were crucial if they were to start a new community.
• Year 7 made models of the internal structure of a computer using playdoh or pipe cleaners!

We are missing having all of our pupils physically in school, but it is so exciting to see them engaging with their learning in a new way. Assemblies, form time and lessons are all available online – almost as good as the real thing!

“I am hugely grateful for all that has been done to run home learning. [My daughter] has had no problems whatsoever and plenty of high quality work has been set. She has been busy all day, independent and coping well. Massive thank you to everyone involved!”

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