The Anguillian
With all three confirmed cases of the coronavirus thankfully recovered, Anguilla took a cautious but important step to ease out of its lockdown with the partial reopening of schools on Monday, May 11.
The just dissolved Anguilla United Front Government, along with the Governor’s Office, the Ministries of Health and Education, took the decision for forms 5 and 6 of the Albena Lake-Hodge Comprehensive School, grades 5 and 6 of the primary schools – and the preschools – to reopen. For several weeks, following the temporary closure of the schools to stem the threat of the coronavirus, it was arranged for the comprehensive and primary schoolchildren to continue their education with online lessons and studies set by their teachers with supervision by parents. While the 5 and 6 form students and the 5 and 6 grade students are now back in school, but with strict sanitary and social distancing arrangements in place, the other students in the lower forms and grades, are still learning at home.
Both the Ministry of Education and Department of Education have issued a press release clearly setting out the new school arrangements and the protective measures against the spread of the covid-19 disease.
Chief Education Officer, Mr. Bren Romney, who has been extremely busy in online discussions with Ministry and Department of Education officials including specialist teams within his own office, took pains to re-emphasise much of the above-stated press release and to further advise parents, students and the general public on various matters of interest and concern.
“All schools at the pre-primary level of preschools are opening but they are determining the arrangements institution by institution,” he explained. “Because of the space limitations at some of the institutions, they are also taking a phased approach. We are encouraging parents to contact those schools and to obtain that information from them in terms of which groups of students will come back initially and which groups will be phased in over time; and how social distancing will be adhered to. We have had meetings with all of those schools to ensure that we can provide ongoing support in a variety of ways and we are doing that. We assisted them with the training of their staff on how to clean and sanitise the premises. We assisted them with sanitisation supplies and other resources, and we are continuing to monitor and work with them to ensure that our students at the foundation level are getting the educational services that they need at this stage. Our primary focus at that level is those students who are transitioning from pre-primary to primary in September. We want to ensure that foundation is cemented and they get the support to do that.”
Mr. Romney continued: “At the primary schools level, all of them are open. We are focusing on a phased approach and are trying to be measured and careful. So we are only bringing back in the physical classrooms grades 5 and 6. Those are the grades that are coming back first across the island. The other grades, kindergarten to grade 4 will remain at home and taught remotely using e-learning platforms…Teachers will increase the number of live sessions with those students to ensure that new material can be taught – evaluated -and that students have that direct connection with the teachers.
“We are focusing on students who have transitional work to complete in grade 5 for grade 6 which they started in September. Grade 6 students are scheduled to do the external examination, CPA, in a couple of months. We are ensuring that these students have the wherewithal to complete the requirements for that external examination. That is why we are bringing in that group first. We can also achieve social distancing with that group. One class, for example, will be spread across two to three classrooms, and one class will have the teaching leading but will be supported by other trained teachers and teaching assistants. While we are bringing back a small group of students, we are also increasing the staff capacity to ensure we can reach them in multiple rooms. In that way, we can adhere to social distancing.”
The Chief Education Officer went on: “At the Albena Lake-Hodge Comprehensive School, our focus again is first on those students who have requirements to complete for their CXC exams. It could be students who are doing CCLC, CSEC, B-TECH or CAPE examinations. We are initially looking at forms 5 and 6, will assess the situation and then start to phase in other students; but the focus will always remain on those students who have to complete commitments for external examinations.
“The public needs to remember that these external examinations are still scheduled to take place in July. We therefore need to ensure that our students are not disadvantaged in any way. Like the primary level, we are also adhering to social distancing requirements which means that the students will be spaced, and only small groups that need to work on projects and SBAs will come. We are not looking at a mass return of students at any given time. I know a number of parents expressed concern about that, but this is measured, just focusing on small groups of students needing to complete certain course requirements. This is either to transition from one grade to the next or to do external examinations.
“The opening of schools in a measured way follows the advice provided by the Ministry of Health in Anguilla; UNICEF and other UN agencies with regard to how we should return students to the classroom in a very phased and measured manner.”
Mr. Romney further stated: “The other question that persons have is whether the remaining school populations will return on June 2nd. Not necessarily. We will reassess the situation in the coming weeks; look at the advice that is being provided by the Ministry of Health in Anguilla – our regional and international partners – and will then make a determination at that point. This will be whether we continue with e-learning or whether it is safe to return other groups of students – so the public must not assume, at this stage, that the remaining student body will return at that juncture on June 2nd.
“As I said, this is not necessarily so. We must be guided by the advice that the health officials are providing to keep our children and parents safe, and to ensure that we don’t contribute to the spread of the covid-19 disease in our community.”