COV I D : T H E G O O D, T H E B A D A N D T H E IMPACT OF THE PA N D EM I C O N A MULGRAVE EDUCAT I ON LINDSEY BERNS (she/her) | DEPUTY HEAD OF SCHOOL
In March 2020, we were in the midst of developing Mulgrave’s 2021-24 Strategic Plan, and had just identified three main areas of focus: student health and well-being; personalisation of learning, including through the use of technology; and skill development, including global citizenship. At the time, of course, we could not have anticipated how the world - and the world of education - were about to be radically transformed by the COVID-19 pandemic. But more than a year later, as we reflect on what we’ve learned from our pandemic experiences, we find that those three themes emerge again and again. We’ve seen how decisions made in one part of the world can affect the lives of people thousands of kilometres away, and understood that we are indeed global citizens and “all in this together.” We’ve seen that community, connection, and a shared sense of purpose are vital for individual well-being - for adults as well as children. And we’ve remembered that the best teachers 7
don’t just teach Math or Chinese - they teach students, and each student has different needs, different strengths, and different goals to strive towards. As a school, we had developed learning continuity plans to prepare for the possibility of an extended campus closure, and so were better prepared for the lockdown than many other schools. Still, when the time came, our faculty faced an extraordinary challenge. Teachers at Mulgrave take great pride in developing a classroom culture characterised by close relationships and collaboration, where students feel encouraged to take risks and challenge themselves in the pursuit of their personal best. How, we wondered, could we replicate that special culture...over Zoom? Every lesson had to be reimagined, every activity rethought. Most importantly, our teachers knew that in order to learn, students need to feel safe, they need to feel seen, and
