Poniżej publikujemy list dyrekcji Akademeia High School skierowany do rodziców i opiekunów uczniów pokazujący, w jaki sposób nasza szkoła przeszła na tryb pełnej edukacji online w związku z wybuchem epidemii koronawirusa.

Dear Parents and Guardians,

Thank you all very much indeed for your support and your patience in these uncertain times. There is so much that we cannot yet know about the social and economic effects of the coronavirus pandemic that it is difficult for everyone, from governments to individuals, to plan ahead. However our strategy has been and remains to keep the school running as close to normal as possible via online teaching and learning. Our teachers have been adapting quickly and creatively to the virtual classroom, and we hope you can see the benefit. As the end of term approaches, we would like to wish you all a happy and healthy Easter and share some of the experiences of our students and teachers over the last two weeks.

Akademeia will resume after the break and for Term III our strategy will be, as before, to ensure the continuity of learning and to support the wellbeing of our students. It has been inspiring and heartwarming to see our students and teachers rally together to create an effective virtual learning environment and new platforms to exchange ideas. We would like to share with you some of our experiences from the past three weeks:

Online learning at Akademeia High School

From the 12th of March Akademeia High School switched to full online learning following the decision of the Polish government to close schools until Easter (at least). Students not only follow the full curriculum remotely, but they can also have individual online consultations, meet with their mentors, or seek support from our Wellbeing Team, as they would in school.

Online Visual and Musical Culture class by Aleksandra Wittchen, our Music Teacher.

Online teaching methods

Akademeia teachers have adapted their teaching methods for online learning. For example, some of our Mathematics teachers use touch screen technology to display solutions while talking with Y13 students at the same time.

A Mathematics lessons on integrations for Y13 students.

Online sport

Our Sports Coaches are running sports activities adapted to home conditions. They made a series of short films on how to exercise at home which we will be sharing on our website (part 1 and part 2).

Psychological support

Our Wellbeing Team helps our students with online individual consultation and psychological support. Dr Marta Dżoga, who heads the Wellbeing team, has also come up with sets of tips for students, parents and teachers on how to survive this difficult time.

You will find wellbeing tips for students prepared by Dr. Dżoga here: part 1 and part 2. Tips for parents are available here.

Students appreciate our solutions

– At first, I was kind of worried about online lessons – I thought we might all struggle with lagging connections and poor audio. Nothing like that happened; it’s superb – said one year 12 student. – The quality of lessons maintained the highest standards. We also keep regular contacts with our teachers and can still ask them questions after the lessons have ended.

Krzysztof, our Year 12 student, during his online Chemistry lesson.

Virtual community

We have continued to nurture and develop our school community through online assemblies, mentoring hours and a number of new initiatives; from a poetry club, through baking and cooking classes, yoga sessions and student run clubs.

Here is Bruno’s, our Year 10 student, silver lining to coronavirus quarantine.

Free exchange of thoughts

The school also ensured a constant flow of information between teachers and other employees, creating a „virtual teacher’s room” and a virtual group for people employed in the administration. In this way, teachers can, for example, share their thoughts on conducting online classes or contacting students. They can also come up with new educational initiatives and simply maintain social relationships.

Online recruitment

On the weekend of 21-22 of March, we conducted our first-ever online recruitment weekend for students applying to join Akademeia in September. We held 129 individual online meetings, 2 online lectures and 168 online tests. The first lecture was an interdisciplinary introduction to Humanities given by Sonia Blank. The second one on polymers was presented by Dr Mark Baynes. We hope that all the candidates learnt a lot and expanded their skills and knowledge. We enjoyed meeting them. We will be conducting another online recruitment weekend on 25 – 26 of April.

Statistics from our first online recruitment weekend.

In these challenging times, our objective is as always is to deliver the highest standard of education. This would not be possible without our teachers’ hard work and dedication, our students’ engagement and strife for excellence, and your continued support, so a huge thank you from us all.

Kind Regards and Best wishes
The Akademeia Management Team