International Schools Blog

How has distance learning impacted our school communities? Maria Satirova, Psychologist at CIS International School‘s Skolkovo Campus explores the psychological impacts of lockdown for students, teachers and parents.

The global coronavirus pandemic turned education upside down in a matter of days in the spring. Suddenly schools across the world were closing their doors and sending their students and teachers home to get on with distance learning, with little time for planning or preparation. It has to be said that many educational establishments rose to the challenge magnificently. Teachers made the pivot to remote teaching and used all their creativity and ingenuity to get to grips with a new way of teaching and make sure that the education of their students continued during lockdown.

The last few months have seen huge change in international schools around the world. In a very short time, the coronavirus and global lockdowns have propelled international schools into a new world of distance learning that has changed the way teachers teach and students learn.

David Grant, full-time writer and consultant, and former Head of English explains that, by getting Key Stage 3 right, we can set students on the path to international GCSE success.

With over 1,000 registrations for our recent Translanguaging webinar (if you missed it, you can watch the recording on demand and download the slide deck), it’s clear that planning for multiple languages in the classroom is an important issue many of you want to know more about.

In the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, schools and other educational establishments were forced to shift their teaching online, in many cases without advance warning or training for educators. Now that it’s been a couple of months, teachers and students are getting into the rhythm of teaching and learning from home. And, it’s a great time to take a look at some new teaching techniques – especially ones that work well with distance learning.

In their first article IB Diploma teachers Michele Lackovic and Ashley Busse shared tips for IB learners around the world to help minimise stress and maximise success in an educational landscape dominated by COVID-19. In this article, they explore how, by living the IB Learner Profile as part of their home learning, students can continue to develop themselves as active, compassionate and lifelong learners.

Global universities are understandably hard at work formalising their response to the worldwide disruption of school exams and assessments in order to mitigate the impact of this on their future student recruitment.

As we continue to support GCSE teaching and learning during COVID-19, we’re hosting free online GCSE lessons for English, Maths, and Science on our Pearson UK Learning YouTube channel.

Online lessons are now part of the ‘new normal’, when schools are closed to some or all students, and some students are shielding at home – but teaching online can be tricky. In this post, Katherine Pate, series editor for new Maths Progress International, provides tips for using Maths Progress International for online lessons.