Online School

After Boris Johnson's announcement last night, schools, and education will be going online for the second time. We currently find ourselves in another national lockdown due to the current pandemic which has some clear consequences.

For the second year in a row now year 11 will not be taking their GCSE's and year 13 will not be taking their A-level exams. After a long time preparing for these exams students, yet again are left in a state of confusion on the situation. The prime minister has not made it fully clear what will happen with their exams, whether they will take adapted tests or if they will not sit them all together. By not having these national exams it has huge side effects for these student's futures. Their results may be determined by teachers' assessments and work that has already been completed. This does raise questions of results being unfair or bias. People in these year groups will not have known that all the work they do for those exams will affect their grade, so as a result, lots may not have worked as hard as they could've. For A-level students especially this massively affects their futures. Although universities will lower their grade requirements some students may still not get in because they did not get the opportunity to sit the exams. Bearing in mind if they did take the exams with no alterations to the papers they would once again be at an extreme disadvantage with having almost 3 months of online learning.

Online learning and school is not easy, but at the moment it seems the only way forward. Teachers and schools are relying on technology and access to the internet for education to continue. Zoom, google classroom, and Microsoft teams are the most popular resources being used at the moment. I am very lucky in the sense I have access to a computer and the internet so I am able to still get an education and continue to learn. However, this is not the case for all students. Some disadvantaged students do not have access to technology and therefore can not participate in online schooling. This in itself is a huge problem as hundreds of students are missing out on vital education which will limit their future opportunities and chances.

Online school is really not the same as real school. We do not get the one-to-one interaction with teachers that we usually would, it's hard to 'hand in' work to be marked, and most importantly we are not getting human interaction. Being locked away in our homes is important to beat the pandemic, however with us sitting on our own every day, doing hard work which we can not work together on, feels very harsh. Humans were designed for interaction so without this interaction, we enter a state of depression and stress. Students are the major group for mental health issues. Sadly suicide rates got a lot higher. It's important to reach out to friends during these times or if you don't feel comfortable doing so, I recommend contraction a helpline.

Online lessons have a lot of problems, technology is far from perfect. These problems are very concerning for young people. For the current year 10s, and 12's they find themselves having online school for their GCSE's and A-levels next summer. However, because of the online schooling will the papers that we sit to be easy. Some will argue that we deserve to have papers that focus on the things we have completed in the classroom. this however creates a further problem as everyone studies different things at different times. So should we be sitting the traditional exam at all?

Many courses for these exams have an element of 'coursework' which allows students to do work for their exams before the final test. It can improve their marks as some work better in a more relaxed environment of the classroom. So should years 10 to 13 be using coursework for their final grades?

In addition, many homes across the UK have abuse issues and students do not feel safe, and with them having to spend all their time at home with their abusive family. This could not only bring down grades but put these children at huge risk of harm.

Unfortunately, the reality of the situation is what it is and it does mean we will be stuck indoors with online learning till at least February half-term. If we did act sooner on the virus we may not be in the situation we are currently in now.

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Helplines if you need them:

Anxiety UK: 03444 775 774

Mind: 0300123 3393

Samaritans: 116 123

Childline: 0800 1111

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5th January

thomasjlblog

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