Zoom has become a big part of life in the past year. Video calls are no longer the medium used solely by the Open University. Everyone across all areas has had to adjust to it and as a result it’s made work, meetings and socialising more accessible. Big Sister now provides tech support for Granny’s online Guild meeting. 

When we made the decision to remove Big Sister and Quinns temporarily from their local school in November due to Quinns’ shielding status Big Sister was enrolled in e-Sgoil. Based in the Western Isles it is a remote teaching facility which provided her with an online teacher, a timetable of online classes and a new set of friends.

It came recommended by other schools who used it when pupils were shielding or isolating, saving school teachers from having to create individual lesson plans while also teaching an almost full class. For me the great benefit was that I didn’t need to be very involved (unless I was pulled in to help with French pronunciation) and that left me more time to work with Quinns. 

Big Sister enjoyed the structure provided by the e-Sgoil online lessons. There were certain times each day she knew she had to be online and outside the core hours there was flexibility for her to work at her own pace on Masterclasses. She got very engaged with the work and built a great rapport with her teacher, often showing off work she’d done at home. The option to respond in text chat in online classes rather than having to speak up in a classroom setting meant she was more likely to be heard. 

She made new friends at e-Sgoil. Children from all over Scotland and for all sorts of reasons joined the class. She was part of a P5 – P7 class (and briefly a P2 – P7 class) so there was a wide range of abilities. There was a playground space where she could get to know the others in her class. Book, film and activity recommendations were bounced around the country while everyone was taking a break from set activities.

Even when everyone across Scotland moved to homeschool she stayed enrolled in e-Sgoil with the option to do additional work provided by her own school. Although she didn’t do very much of the work she did take the opportunity to join in on calls with her class. We knew she was capable of slotting back in to school when the time came.

She was sad when it was time to leave e-Sgoil and go back to school even though she was keen to see her school friends again. Given the choice now she would split her time between e-Sgoil and school. Contact with both sets of friends and being taught in two different ways may be the best of both worlds!