One of the heads at Oswestry School has been sharing her expertise with teachers in Nottingham by offering new training online.

Claire Belk, head of Oswestry School’s prep department Bellan House, has been training teachers how to deliver effective online learning.

Following the success of the school’s online teaching provision during lockdown Claire was approached by the Education Improvement Service for Nottinghamshire Local Authority.

Claire described it as a privilege to share the knowledge learned at Oswestry School to help other teachers.

“Education is in an incredibly exciting phase of technological development," she said.

“And this can be harnessed now to not only support learners at home, but to revolutionise the way we deliver learning in the day to day classroom.

“Here at Oswestry School we are continuing to develop the skills for life; skills that are evolving at an unprecedented speed and will certainly be requirements for our young people when they seek work in future years.

“Our school is at the very forefront of educational developments as what we see as ‘normal practice’ is far from it in schools across the nation.

“The Nottinghamshire development group of Headteachers are there to lead the way for other schools in their county and it was a privilege to share just how much we have achieved to facilitate the learning and pastoral support of children working at home.”

Claire was asked to present the school’s hybrid learning approach to Headteachers working throughout the country of Nottingham who lead and support change in schools.

Supporting children at home while others are in school is an area of difficulty for many schools.

Oswestry School has used the Google platform to support effective learning and pastoral wellbeing for pupils both in school and at home during the Covid crisis.

Sharing her expertise, Claire showed that there is enormous potential in using these platforms to develop technological competencies that are becoming vital skills for the workplace.

“By supporting children with technical skills now,” said Claire. “We are preparing them for the future and laying the foundations of skills they will need to acquire to become the successful communicators and problem solvers of the future.”

The training was delivered to the Nottingham development team through Microsoft Teams and Claire is hopeful that the Headteachers will have a better understanding of how to use the different facets of the online suite to provide effective education in any location.