Below, Pratish our Senior Project Manager will talk us through how he is helping to support his local school during these challenging times.

A few weeks ago, schools across the UK were closed for a total of 8 million pupils and A-Level and GCSE exams were cancelled, while the government aims to curb the increasing spread of the coronavirus

With COVID-19 quickly altering the daily routines of people around the globe, many are facing unfamiliar territories. As a result, organisations are having to adapt and make difficult but necessary decisions. Communities are uniting and helping each other out in their response and preparation efforts against COVID-19.

Supporting my local school

With the closing of the schools being announced, I approached my local school, to see if they needed any technical support in implementing remote teaching. As two of my children attend this school, I was very interested to find out what procedures they had in place in terms of remote learning, and if I could help.

From inquiring I found out that the school did not have any form of technical communication channel set up to support pupils. All they had in place was an application, from which teachers could share learning materials. However, they didn’t have anything set up where they could perform video discussions, allowing for remote style classroom teaching. To help, I provided some initial guidance and consultancy discussing what tools they could utilise, including Microsoft Teams and other similar conference tools like Zoom. Due to the number of requirements and length of time, it would take to set up, they didn’t see it as a feasible option to set up remote video classrooms. As the lockdown continues and schools remain closed, I hope to continue to assist them, anyway I can, whether that be providing guidance or setting up remote learning capabilities.

Microsoft Teams and Remote Learning

As Microsoft partners, ClerksWell is here to help with the implementation of Office 365 and Teams which remains free for schools as well as other business for up to 6 months. Teams allows students, teachers and staff to seamlessly work together, create content and share resources all from one platform. ClerksWell and Microsoft can help students by ensuring continued access to the educational materials they need to stay on track, as well as supporting teachers and administrators with online classes, grading and communications systems.

How we can help you with Teams:

Here at ClerksWell we are big advocates of Teams and have been using it since it was released in 2017, well before the COVID-19 outbreak. So now it’s our time to shine. Let us help you successfully implement Teams for your school to increase remote learning capabilities.

Our services include:

· Best practise set up and configuration

· Demos & training of features and functionality

· Adoption and engagement strategy

· Analytics and reporting to optimise Teams productivity

· Governance to prevent the ‘Teams sprawl’

If you’re interested in how we can help you, please get in touch with our Account Director Danielle via our contact us form here

Or if you want to find out more about 'Remote working during the COVID-19 Outbreak' or 'Working from home with children' check out our previous blogs.