Innovation in EDUCATION

BEING AGILE, FLEXIBLE AND ADAPTIVE ENSURED ST MARY’S DELIVERED – WITH THAT ADDED PERSONAL TOUCH

As the whole world found themselves in the midst of a pandemic, schools needed to be agile, flexible and adaptive. St Mary’s committed to continue providing excellence in our teaching and learning programmes through our “School@Home” programme.

In 2019 we introduced the Class Dojo App in Junior Primary to connect with parents, to share classroom moments and snippets of their daughter’s school day in the form of photos and videos shared with our families.

This innovative decision was the perfect platform to use for our online learning. Videos, worksheets and messages from the class teachers were uploaded daily in addition to email communication and regular WhatsApp calls. During Term 2 there were a total of 2 130 messages sent home on the Class Dojo App, and 3 669 posts shared by our Junior Primary team.

We embarked on our online journey with very clear goals; our educational programme could not be compromised, we needed flexibility for our school community as families were juggling multiple roles and operating in their own unique circumstances, and by keeping regular, meaningful contact and staying connected with our families and little girls.

“We wanted to ensure that the personal touch was still a priority by delivering our bespoke programme via Dojo each day,” says Mrs Wendy Ross, Head of Junior Primary. “Each class were able to have Zoom calls so that they could ‘see’ one another and still share their news.”

Running alongside our educational programme we created a “Shake Off the Lockdown Blues” School Story Page where we posted our weekly Chapel Service, Assembly, Sport and Drama lessons. There were also many fun-filled activities which included family quizzes, riddles, science experiments, Story Time and baking activities.

We are delighted that all grades are currently back at school as you cannot replace personal interaction, whilst running our online programme concurrently. We are enormously grateful to our parents for partnering with us during this time, truly being “Stronger Together”.

Grade 3 mom, Mrs Hlengiwe Malevu, says, “As a family, we were able to navigate our way through the School@ Home programme because the app brought the class to our home. The educators went beyond their call of duty to make the best of an unknown and unpredictable situation, being available, at times, even into the evenings, to provide support, update and guidance.”

Mrs Samantha Pattrick, with daughters in both Grade 1 and 4, was equally impressed. “St Mary’s exceeded our expectations in the online learning space. We couldn’t have asked for a better home learning experience! However, our children were delighted when schools reopened so at last they were able to see their friends and teachers.”

FOR MORE INFO 031 764 9855 marketing@stmarysdsg.co.za www.stmarysdsg.co.za