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Dulwich Adapts January 2021
Sport continued and impressive indeed were the Saturday morning squad sessions which attracted hundreds and focussed on developing the skills of touch rugby. The turn out was indeed impressive given the complete lack of inter school fixtures during the Michaelmas term. Looking back it seems clear that it was almost certainly the more highly transmissible variant of the virus first identified in mid December that was responsible for a noticeable increase in numbers of Covid cases identified across all age groups and within the teaching staff from the beginning of the month. It would be difficult to offer another explanation in a school that can pride itself in keeping the number positive cases extremely low up to that point. It certainly felt that we were back to where we had been in March and it was not surprising when the College shut its doors and returned to teaching on line for the last three days before the Christmas break. On Monday 4 January 2021 the Government moved rapidly after listening to warnings from their scientific advisers that the new variant of Covid 19 virus was spreading so rapidly there was a genuine fear that the NHS would soon be overwhelmed. The country would return to something close to the first full lockdown; schools would be closed. This despite assurances only 24 hours previously that the Government would make good its plan to keep schools open and begin testing of all pupils and staff. Like so many other schools, Dulwich had to spin on a sixpence. On the Monday morning we had taken delivery of 5800 lateral flow testing kits and provided training for 41 colleagues to administer the tests. Twenty four teaching colleagues were in school to support the Admissions team with the administration of the first session of the 11+ exams. As I write, no promises have been made about when we will actually be back in the classroom. The Government who was at first optimistic about a return after half term are more cautious now. Public exams have been cancelled and decisions are being made about how best to avoid the use of the much criticised algorithm to award grades for GCSE and A Levels. There is talk of a combination of mini tests and teacher assessments. We shall wait and see. Whatever Ofqual comes up with I am sure it will be met with a determination to achieve the best possible outcome for the boys. They are living in extraordinary times and it is our duty to help them navigate their way through to the best of our ability.
teaching from home boys who were sitting in their usual classrooms in the College. As someone who had to act as a cover teacher during a biology lesson it was slightly disconcerting to be in front of twenty students all sat silently in front of their laptops listening through headphones randomly calling out answers to questions being posed by their teacher sitting in his kitchen in Streatham. The uniform rules were relaxed, ties did not have to be worn and anyone with a sporting commitment during the day came to school in the relevant kit thus avoiding the need for crowded changing rooms. A marquee was erected beside the Christison Hall to allow lunches to be staggered by year group and staff soon got used to picking up lunch in a takeaway box to eat back in their Department Offices. The senior boarding houses were reorganised with Blew becoming a home away from home for the Remove and Ivyholme taking the Sixth form. Adapting was more of a challenge for Orchard but the clever rejigging of space it was possible for dormitories to become year group bubbles. Much has been made of the importance of mental health during the pandemic and the College went to great lengths to provide support and activities beyond the classroom. Form Tutor periods allowed staff to meet their tutees on a daily basis and the pastoral teams made sure that the most vulnerable were not allowed to slip below the radar. The staff too were looked after and a weekly publication ‘Something For’ provided some much needed relief at the end of a week so often spent glued to a computer screen. The bulletin offered Something For the Mind - possibly a book suggestion, Something For the Heart – often an exercise routine, Something For the Soul, - a poem perhaps and Something For... the Stomach! Co-curricular activites quickly adapted to social distancing. We managed to complete several debating competitions on line and if anything societies found it easier than ever to attract guest speakers, particularly when it became obvious that they, like everyone else, could make use of Zoom and avoid a time consuming journey to South London. House meetings may have been cancelled but competitions continued and with the emphasis put firmly onto year groups it could be argued that more boys were involved in writing poetry, playing chess or taking photographs. Of course some activities suffered, music and drama in particular found it challenging to work with the restrictions and while much good work was done on line, live rehearsals and performances were considerably curtailed.
The College reopened in September after the summer break, during which time a huge amount of work had gone on behind the scenes to make the school and its operations as Covid proof as possible. At the heart of the many changes was a system of year group bubbles each of which were located in specific area of the school. The South Block became home to Year 10 and the Lower Sixth, while Year 9 and Year 11 were relocated to the North Block. The Sixth Form were housed in the Lord George Building while Years 7 and 8 remained in the Lower School. In order to accommodate practical science lessons the Laboratory had rooms allocated to specific year groups. The Wodehouse Library remained open with ‘years’ admitted in only on prescribed days with cleaning taking place over night. Separate entrances and exits to each block allowed the movement of boys to be carefully controlled and everyone was expected to wear a mask while in transit within a building. Masks were not mandatory in lessons although a significant number of boys and staff did wear them. We soon got used to the small team of cleaners in PPE who sanitised surfaces throughout the day. The most obvious impact of the reorganisation was that it was now the teachers who moved between lessons and with the requirement to keep classroom doors open in order to improve the flow of air it was not unusual, while sitting in the Geography Office, for me to hear a chemist teaching about valences to year 10 or a group of Remove Politics students discussing national constitutions. I looked forward in particular to a Tuesday afternoon Liberal Studies course on the Law.
Members of staff carried with them their Microsoft surfaces which were simply plugged into a docking station located on the teachers desk along with the now obligatory hand sanitiser and wet wipes. The desk was socially distanced from the class which itself was a spread out as much as space allowed. Important too was the requirement that the boys should sit in the same relative position to each other from lesson to lesson, even if the physical classroom changed. This quickly became a godsend to the senior management team who had to track and trace boys who had had contact with anyone who had tested positive for Covid. Parents evenings went on line and with everyone at home there were no longer queues snaking their way round the Great Hall, alive with parents catching up with friends or growing slightly irritated as five minute interview stretched out to six, seven or eight minutes. Technology cannot yet adapt to ‘just one more’ question and a scheduled five minutes means five minutes, not a second longer. Parents soon learned that eight seconds was not enough time to ask that ‘one last question’ about what their son would be studying for the rest of the year. Of course boys and staff were affected directly by Covid. In fact we had been back barely two weeks when a small number of boys in Year 13 tested positive and it quickly became obvious that the number of close contacts was significant enough for Public Health England to advise us to send the entire year group home and a return to on line learning. They were joined by a small number of staff who had been identified as needing to isolate and they found themselves in the strange position of
Trevor Llewelyn
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