How is it learning from home during the Coronavirus crisis?

For the last couple of months, the world has changed massively since the arrival of the pandemic virus known as Coronavirus from China. The question is how has it affected education for me and other students in the UK? 

In March 2020 all primary and secondary schools, colleges and higher education closed and we are all on lock down. My college, the College of Haringey, Enfield, and North East London (CONEL) closed on 20th March 2020 and as per Boris Johnson’s request online classes began.

I study a Sport’s Level 3 course because I have an interest in sports and have knowledge and background in this sector. I also participate in sports professionally outside college in Track & Field. I also study this course because I would like to take on sports journalism in university and continue with this in my career path and be a presenter for companies such as BBC sports and Sky . I believe this course will help me to do this and help me learn different factors of the sporting industry. 

Moreover, online classes on Microsoft Teams have been incredibly good and the experience has been better than I expected. The teachers really try their hardest to make the lessons seem as if we were in college which is fantastic as this helps us students understand the topic and the assignments further. However, the online sessions do have their disadvantages as some students have problems with their internet connections or other families may have other people in their property and my not be able to listen properly due to the noise, which may reduce their rate of concentration. 

On the other hand, my sibling’s online classes differ to my online classes because in the UK a lot of secondary school students are not verbally getting help from their teachers as they are being set homework to revise on, such as programmes such as Show my homework. This differs massively from my college as they are not being able to receive the help they need. Also, GCSE students have  a massive impact on them as they may be receiving predicted grades, however if they are not happy with this they will need to take exams when the pandemic has gone. 

Although there are online classes for all individual pupils in my class, my friends have also found this challenging as lot of them are visual learners and they like to work in small teams and participate in small groups to help them guide them though the different stage of the assignments. This helps them aim and target themselves to achieve Merit and Distinction . However, they do enjoy the ability of being able to learn online and continue to finish work to finish off the year.

The experience of studying from home has been very difficult for me as an individual as I’m a learner who is more visual and enjoy asking many questions to my teachers and working within groups with different task to enable me to work at a higher standard to also achieve a high grade for each assignment for university. On the other hand, as I have a big family and siblings who are also in higher education it’s difficult as lessons may clash, which will mean everyone wants to use a certain device at the same time. 

However, learning from home has helped me as an individual to become more vigilant in my learning as in college your rely on your teachers, I have been able to use the resourses more in order to teach myself the different units and assignments. This has enabled me to become more confident for university and has helped be able to be confident in my research. 

Overall, I believe the Coronavirus pandemic will finish but it may take time to find the different solutions and remedies to cure it and make sure people are safe around the world. However, education will go back to normal as it is vital for students to carry on and work for their different level of education they are studying at. I feel that the government will do everything they need to do to be able to support all students and make sure they are targeting everything they will need to pass. 

Pierrette Simuene, Student at CONEL